August 30, 2010

Things that didn't meet the Huffington Post standards.

"$100,000 For Glenn Beck's Sex Tape" gets attention via Memeorandum,  but HuffPo has deleted it.

Newsbusters calls attention to the writer's bio:
Beau Friedlander is a writer living in Brooklyn. He was the editor-in-chief of Air America until it closed in 2010...
And yet people wonder why Air America didn't cut it.

62 comments:

garage mahal said...

And yet people wonder why Air American didn't cut it.

Comments on this post will happily fill up with alleged "liberal media bias" claims, which you would think would be contradictory to this statement. No matter.

"Liberal media can't cut it!"

"But it's everywhere!"

Alex said...

After all this time and it's still only "alleged". *spit*

Anonymous said...

The word jackal comes to mind.

garage mahal said...

So liberal media is either highly successful, or it isn't.

hombre said...

Dog bites man at HuffPo.

Alex said...

GM - at this point the liberal media is dying. Have you checked the ratings and revenues lately?

garage mahal said...

GM - at this point the liberal media is dying. Have you checked the ratings and revenues lately?

Great, it won't be long at all when conservatives will start whining about liberal media bias then. Right?

Alex said...

GM - ask yourself why you are so biased against conservatives.

Alex said...

lol

the pretty sums of the left these days.

Unknown said...

If Puffington has standards, they remain a closely guarded secret.

garage mahal said...

And yet people wonder why Air American didn't cut it.

Comments on this post will happily fill up with alleged "liberal media bias" claims, which you would think would be contradictory to this statement. No matter.

"Liberal media can't cut it!"

"But it's everywhere!"


And it's dying.

Martin L. Shoemaker said...

And yet people wonder why Air American didn't cut it.

Comments on this post will happily fill up with alleged "liberal media bias" claims, which you would think would be contradictory to this statement. No matter.


Let me see if I can explain this so that you can understand the distinction.

The biased liberal media are the established liberal media: the New York Times, the Washington Post and Boston Globe (though I think both of those are more objective than the Times), the big three networks, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, NPR, Time, Newsweek, and many other major outlets. They already have their reputations and their audience (though they're determinedly dribbling both away of late). Also, most of these outlets claim (laughably) to be more about objective news than subjective opinion.

Air America was an attempt to inject liberal alternatives into an entirely different market, that of opinion talk radio. The failure of liberal ideas in that market in no way disproves the bias and dominance in the other market.

And here's one very concrete example of how the two markets differ. The market (it's really multiple markets that we collectively dub "the media", because they provide similar services even though using through different channels) dominated by the liberal media is a market where decisions are mostly driven by the top. CBS, NBC, and ABC news are sold to their entire affiliate base, and few of them will say "no" to the parent network. CNN and MSNBC are sold as part of major programming packages, and so few cable operators are going to say "no" to them. And PBS and NPR (along with smaller and more extreme sources like Pacifica and American Public Media) are the only game in town for national content in the public broadcasting sphere. So if a few people at the top are driven more by ideology than by profit, they can push the agenda, dollars be damned (for a while). If that creates a market niche for Fox News to come in and steal viewers (and ad revenue) away, they don't care, because they want the "correct" perspective in a show with their name on it.

Opinion talk radio, on the other hand, is a game of local syndication. You have to convince some programming director to put your show on his station in the noon-to-three eastern slot. And he has a station manager and a station owner and a sales manager all breathing down his neck to meet the audience levels that will support the ad rates they need to make payroll and keep broadcasting. And he has advertisers who get upset when customers start complaining about the shows they support. (Local complaints are far more effective than national boycotts, because the local small business is usually running on a tighter margin.) So the very market that is most dependent on the views of the audience -- opinion talk radio -- is exactly the market where liberal ideas failed most dramatically.

The print outlets are different in this regard: they're even less top-down than talk radio, because individual consumers pick them and pay for them, one at a time. This allows them to better find their audience; and so liberal opinion/news sources in print are more successful than Air America ever managed. But still, those print outlets are mostly bleeding money right now. I think that's more their business model than their content. As Egon quipped, "Print is dead." That joke was ahead of its time.

I'm Full of Soup said...

And before that he repaired steam engines for the railroad. And before that he was a blacksmith for the Pony Express.

Or perhaps I am confusing him with Alpha Liberal or Garage [our two lovable but obsolete doofi].

Sid said...

The first mistake is to take GM's "But it's everywhere!" as a valid argument. Liberal media bias dominates many formerly important ecological niches in the news environment, but is struggling to compete in many of the newer ecosystem niches available in the new Net environment.

On top of that, liberal media bias promotes/produces a psychological monoculture, which--as everyone knows, right?--makes it that much harder for it to compete in a dynamic environment. Like the English Red squirrel, it is unable to compete even in areas--like radio, or cable television--where it was formerly found once a more dynamic competitor--The American Gray Squirrel, Rush Limbaugh or Fox News--moves in. It's like corn, seemingly ubiquitous, but so over bred and homogeneous that it cannot survive without intensive cultivation and subsidization by those who depend on it for a living.

Trooper York said...

This dude is from Brooklyn so he has to be a dick. Just Sayn'

Anonymous said...

Beck? Sex tapes? Beau Friedlander must be a very inventive guy.

I'm probably too old to be this incredulous, but Beck cries on national television, admits he is a Mormon, and confesses to being a recovering alcoholic. Like Sarah Palin, his every move and utterance--real and imagined--has been infinitely scrutinized by the Left.

And now you say the Huffington Post has decency standards?

I need to lie down.

former law student said...

And yet people wonder why Air American didn't cut it.

This is more of a chicken or egg situation. You go into some of these small boroughs in NYC, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the editor-in-chief jobs have been gone now for months and nothing's replaced them. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to books or publishing or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-conservative sentiment or anti-Beck sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

AllenS said...

If the Huffington Post had standards, it would cease to exist.

I'm Full of Soup said...

FLS:

The news media has written from a liberal slant for years. In the last few years, its paying audience has shrunk, in part, due to that liberal slant. Are you suggesting that that editor, you speak of, is now bitter at the conservative reader [who the editor disdains] because the conservative no longer buys his newspaper?

wv = kitykie [mofo]

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
David said...

Nice slap at the Mormons by the author at the link. Doesn't think they give women their due. Wonder how the guy feels about Islam?

Anonymous said...

'Here's my product and you're all a bunch of idiots if you don't want to buy it', hardly seems like a winning marketing message.

Trooper York said...

Field and Stream has offered $1.50 for a sex tape of Garage Mahal having sexual congress with roadkill.

But after 150 tapes were mailed in they had to stop the contest.

former law student said...

AJL: Friedlander's envious of Beck. Beck's on top of the world; Friedlander is back in mom's basement. If you brood on what you believe to be your misfortune, and the unfairness of it all, lashing out irrationally is only to be expected. If, instead, you're still "editor-in-chief of Air America," you have much less reason and much less time to brood, and act out.

Quaestor said...

garage mahal wrote: "So liberal media is either highly successful, or it isn't"

That's right. It isn't highly successful... anymore.

I'm Full of Soup said...

FLS: Now I get it - you were saying he is out of work and bitter because he is out of work and those jobs are gone forever. I misunderstood what you wrote.

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...

Well over half the people in the country think the MSM slants to the left. Those in denial sound more and more like legacy media "bitter clingers".

AllenS said...

Hmmmmm. Is FLS changing?

Quaestor said...

former law student wrote: "If, instead, you're still "editor-in-chief of Air America," you have much less reason and much less time to brood, and act out."

I wonder what's left to edit over at "Air America" other than the general ledger.

wv: ouress - the genitive case of oneness

Anonymous said...

"Nice slap at the Mormons by the author at the link. Doesn't think they give women their due."

Which implies that the women in Mormonism are too stupid to know, or too weak to hold their own or to leave.

It's an argument as old as Brigham Young. Congress objected to the 'wicked patriarchy' in the Great Basin, and blocked seating the territorial delegates the Mormons sent on the ground that Mormon women were oppressed and without a voice.

Brigham Young and the Mormons called Congress' bluff. The Utah territorial legislature granted women the vote in February of 1870, thus making Utah only the second territory to do so and ahead of every other state in the union in woman's suffrage.

The expanded pool of voters sent the same men to Washington.

But the victory for Utah women was short lived. In 1887 the true wicked patriarchy repealed and stripped the vote from Mormon women

I'm referring, of course, to the U.S. Congress. Once the women loving and protecting souls in Washington were done Utah women couldn't vote again until 1895.

KCFleming said...

"Things that didn't meet the Huffington Post standards."

Good for them. An odd moment of integrity, but welcome.

Alex said...

So here's the question - is there a liberal media? Listening to my liberal friends on the blogs or in person, there is no such thing. Only right-wing media exists like Fox News.

Joe said...

I read part of the offer at NRO's "The Corner." It's a mug's game offer...
whatever you offer up, you won't get paid for it. It must remove Mr beck from the public eye FOREVER.

Will short of a videotape of you using your phaser on "Vorpalize" against Mr Beck, or your Veron-T Disrupter, nothing will remove Mr. Beck FOREVER.

And even the Phaser or Veron_T Disrupter gambit, puts you in jail for life, and therefore LEGALLY BARRED FROM PROFITING FROM YOUR CRIME.

No matter what you do, you can't collect the $100,000. This is akin to the bet Herman Kahn made to his colleagues about a "rational path to nuclear war." Whre Kahn got to judge both the path and it's rationality...

Jeremy, Monty, Alpha, or C4 do not fall for this challenge...you will only end up even MORE embittered at your misrable lot in life.

Martin L. Shoemaker said...

Joe,

It's a mug's game offer...
whatever you offer up, you won't get paid for it. It must remove Mr beck from the public eye FOREVER.


Not only that: the guy doesn't have the money. He just promises to negotiate with someone (unspecified) to get the money for you.

If anyone actually does have such a tape, don't waste time with this loser. Negotiate your own deal. Or hire a lawyer to negotiate you. But don't hire the editor-in-chief of a failed radio network.

wv: prower. Mr. Friedlander only detracts from your negotiating prower.

garage mahal said...

That's right. It isn't highly successful... anymore.

True or untrue, you will never hear the end of conservatives blaming the "liberal media" for everything.

Martin L. Shoemaker said...

True or untrue, you will never hear the end of obscure liberal pundits (and obscure blog commenters, though you may be less obscure than Mr. Friedlander) blaming Glenn Beck and conservative talk radio for everything.

True or untrue, you will never hear the end of President Obama blaming President Bush for everything.

Fixed that for you; but it was such a large mistake, it required two fixes.

Anonymous said...

"And yet people wonder why Air American didn't cut it."

I'm wondering why the Huffington Post cuts it.

You mean to tell me that authors they hire have the capability of publishing directly to the Huffington Post website without so much as a single editor approving their copy?

What the fuck?

Does the Huffington Post Company have a board of directors? Because the management of this media company are a bunch of fucking morons if they've created a system where any rogue lefty "author" can create legal liability for the corporation by pushing some buttons on their keyboard at home.

Libel attorney's should take note. The Huffington Post should be easy takings and you'd do well to get a screen shot of their lame Editor's Note before they memory hole it.

garage mahal said...

Democrats have been winning elections. I don't know who they are blaming.

As far as Glenn Beck - his ratings are down, and a pathetically weak number of people showed for his stupid rally. Yet all the cable networks carried it live, and he had access to tens of millions to promote it. A small fraction of this country are tea party goers, yet they have their own embedded reporters from major media outlets. One moron with a bullhorn mad at Obama is all it takes it seems. It sure don't feel media liberal.

Anyways I really wanted to hear if Althouse would be the interpretator for the alleged tape, if someone would just pony up that motherfuckin 100k first. Maybe even write a book!

Matt said...

Martin L. Shoemaker

True or untrue, you will never hear the end of mainstream and obscure [conservative] pundits blaming [Liberals] and [Liberal media] for everything.

True or untrue, you will never hear the end of Republicans blaming President Clinton and now President Obama for everything.

Two can play this game.

Face it. To Conservatives everything is to be blamed on Liberals and Democrats when they are in charge. But when Republicans are in charge Conservatives withhold judgement until the Liberals are back in charge. And vice versa....

Martin L. Shoemaker said...

Matt,

Respectfully: duh. Don't tell me, tell garage. He's the one who doesn't get that.

Revenant said...

But when Republicans are in charge Conservatives withhold judgement until the Liberals are back in charge.

There are plenty of conservatives who criticized the spending spree that Congress embarked on under Bush's watch. There just weren't many who saw that as a reason to vote against the Republicans, because, well, Democrats are worse.

The last three years have proven that point sufficiently, I think.

Methadras said...

Revenant said...

The last three years have proven that point sufficiently, I think.


True. However, look at the audience you are pointing this out too. It's not like they are above pulling their fingers out of their mouths, sticking them up in the air like antenna to gauge the new political talking points that the DNC will broadcast to those fingers for who to point them at and to blame with. Never themselves coincidentally.

Peter V. Bella said...

One word why Air America did not cut it- boring.

Revenant said...

a pathetically weak number of people showed for his stupid rally.

I wonder if garage realizes how silly that statement makes him sound.

Carlon Haas said...

I think all of you are missing the big picture...you really think anyone wants to see a sex tape of Glenn Beck?

Matt said...

Revenant

Remember it was Dick Cheney who said deficits don't matter. And also note Bush signed a prescription drug act [which I approved of btw] but he did not put in place a way to pay for it.

Also note the bailout was pretty much a bipartisan affair.

Also note the health care plan is one that has written into it a way to have it paid for via various methods, which granted may be over estimated. Still, the point is both sides spend like mad but at least the Democrats are willing to tell us taxes may have to rise. While Republicans get us into two wars and then implement tax cuts. That's rather backward logic in my book.

cookasia said...

That's right. It isn't highly successful... anymore.

True or untrue, you will never hear the end of conservatives blaming the "liberal media" for everything.

Well, GM, they deserve it.

jimspice said...

Is anyone offering cash for the video of Beck raping and murdering a young girl in 1990?

AllenS said...

What kind of a sick fuck would want to pay any amount of money to see a sex tape of Glen Beck? Jesus.

Joe said...


Is anyone offering cash for the video of Beck raping and murdering a young girl in 1990?



Just one?

AllenS said...

Does Fried lander expect to see a big Glen Beck wanger? That's just gay.

Revenant said...

Remember it was Dick Cheney who said deficits don't matter. And also note Bush [snip]

Asking me if I "remember" that the Bush administration was financially irresponsible when I just got finished criticizing them for it is silly, don't you think?

Not quite as silly as these bits, though:

Also note the bailout was pretty much a bipartisan affair.

While Republicans get us into two wars and then implement tax cuts

The first amusing bit to this is the "and then implement" -- the tax cuts were passed in June of 2001.

The second, much more amusing bit is that you describe TARP (voted for by 33% of Republican Congressmen) as "mostly bipartisan", but label the wars in Iraq (voted for by 43% of Democratic Congressmen) and Afghanistan (voted for by 99% of Democratic Congressmen) as ones "Republicans [got] us into". Funny stuff. Bills are only bipartisan when they let your party blame Republicans for something, I guess.

In the six years when Republicans controlled both Congress and the Presidency, the national debt grew by $470 billion/year. In the two years in which Democrats controlled Congress and Republicans controlled the Presidency, the national debt grew by $767 billion/year. Since the Democrats have controlled both Congress and the White House, the debt has been growing at an average of $2,235 billion/year. But they promise it'll drop to a mere $973 billion/year if their rosy financial predictions pan out.

Like I said -- Bush was bad, and we said so. But we knew Democrats would be worse, and we were right.

Skyler said...

Matt pointed out: Remember it was Dick Cheney who said deficits don't matter. And also note Bush signed a prescription drug act [which I approved of btw] but he did not put in place a way to pay for it.

Did you notice that Bush was not popular because of his socialist policies? Did you notice that McCain was rejected by a lot of republicans because he supported the bailout?

garage mahal said...

I wonder if garage realizes how silly that statement makes him sound.

100k or even 200k ain't a lot of people.

Revenant said...

100k or even 200k ain't a lot of people.

200k is what Martin Luther King got. That "pathetically weak turnout" ended up having a pretty big impact on American politics.

Methadras said...

garage mahal said...

I wonder if garage realizes how silly that statement makes him sound.

100k or even 200k ain't a lot of people.


And yet, here you are, not putting your money where your mouth is. Oddly enough, no one has asked you if you even believe such a tape exists. Well? When was the last time you had one of your hands out of your pants?

garage mahal said...


200k is what Martin Luther King got. That "pathetically weak turnout" ended up having a pretty big impact on American politics.


Be curious your cite for this. The cites I seen for beck's event was 87k.

Revenant said...

Be curious your cite for this.

I didn't make a claim about the size of Beck's rally; I just pointed out that your "even 200k ain't a lot of people" comment describes MLK's speech.

The cites I seen for beck's event was 87k.

You haven't even "seen" any estimates higher than the one by AirPhotosLive.com? Interesting.

GMay said...

garage, you hopeless hack.

First, some perspective from USA Today.

Then head over to the Wapo and look at picture 14. Then try that 87k bullshit somewhere else where they might believe you. Probably the same type of people who want to see Glenn Beck having sex.

BJM said...

The HuffPo has standards?

Fen said...

Garage: 100k or even 200k ain't a lot of people

Oh noooos! The libtard is working without his talking points net again.

This should be fun.

*makes popcorn*

BTW, how is it that the same people who made a big deal about the date of MLKs speech dont have the first clue as to how big his audience was?

Ha.

BJM said...

@Garage

So liberal media is either highly successful, or it isn't.


Yes.

AST said...

I noticed it and posted "How is Journolist like a Sex Tape?"