Annapolis Capital Punishment

In her latest "revitalized" blog entry where so far she has received no comments, Mayor Ellen O Moyer suggests we have a "Point to Ponder" and writes:

On August 9, writing in the Washington Post, Dan Rather called for a commission to address “the perilous state of Americas new media”. He questioned the way news is delivered and the quality of information the public receives which he defined as “more opinion commentary and marketing masquerading as news”. Seeing “this a crisis that…threatens our democratic republic at its core”, Rather called for a public discussion on the “role news is meant to play in our democratic system of government”.

What do you think?"

Yes Ellen O, our news media are in a state of peril, but not for the reasons you think or with the consequences that seem to concern you. What bothers you is that you cannot own or control The Capital or local bloggers such as Capital Punishment and that we don't toe your line. This is why you must be so pleased that your pals (including citizen reporter "Bill Charles" and we all know who he is) have started a blog to get your points across. This is why you are taking OUR MONEY to HIRE CONTRACTORS TO WRITE and VIDEOTAPE PUFF ABOUT YOU.

So you want to know what I think? Well, thanks for asking. You are the threat to our democratic republic, not the news media...or little old country bloggers.

Rather is not saying anything "news" but is echoing what many have been saying for years. Ben Bagdikian, who I have met, wrote in his book "The Media Monopoly" about the perils of increasing concentration and conglomeration of corporate media ownership decades ago. Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death" and Bill McKibben's "The Age of Missing Information" also warned us early on of our dangerous infatuation with entertainment and meaningless trivia in the media. However, if anybody thinks that "news" has ever been completely factual, representational or accurate, guess again. Of course our news is getting less factual and less accurate and its delivery is being rapidly transformed--and in ways both profoundly disturbing and amazingly positive. Yes it is a perilous situation, especially so because we have lost the counter-balancing or mediating power of the fifth estate to act as a watchdog over government and political leaders--such as Ellen O. However, that role has also been taken up by many in the blogosphere, some of whom are responsible and who have standards, and some who do not.

Ellen O pays a variety of spinsters to GET HER WORDS OUT ON OUR DIME--Ray Weaver, Karen Engelke, Steve Carr, Mike Malinoff, Bob Agee, Don Lamb-Minor, Tony Spencer and Jane Schlegel and of course Rhonda Wardlaw who makes nearly six figures and serves at the pleasure of the mayor and who has set up Ellen O's own television program....at our expense.

What bothers Ellen O., who has heretofore focused on trees, sister cities and parks but has suddenly become a media critic, is not so much the decline of the normative Western-model of fair and balanced reporting, but the fact that media and bloggers have become her most outspoken and influential critics.

I really don't think that is what Dan Rather was talking about, but the mayor did ask what I thought.

SO DON'T PRESUME TO POINT FINGERS AT ME OR ANY OTHER BLOGGER BECAUSE YOU DON'T LIKE WHAT WE HAVE TO SAY.


Now, over to you Rhonda.


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