‘TIL THE LAST DOG DIES

Coming tomorrow- Chapter 3 of KPD Blue

‘TIL THE LAST DOG DIES: We awoke today to a e-mailbox full of stories about the Gestapo-like raids of more than a dozen locations in St. Paul, MN, rousting and arresting protesters gathered in local people’s homes the day before the Republican convention greeted us.

After seeing some excellent video reports from The Uptake we turned to Disappeared News where Larry Geller provided more video links confirming the reports that these yahoos in the Ramsey County sheriff’s department even beat up and arrested Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! while she and her staff were covering the raids and police violence.

So we figured that it would be all over the papers and certainly on CNN.

Turn on the tube and not a word- not even a mention- of these atrocities all day until just before 7 p.m. eastern time when a 30 second piece showed the footage of Goodman being arrested, preceded of course by a top city cop stating with a straight face they “broke up a ring... intent in rioting”.

And also barely an MSM peep about the real specifics of this piece of work from Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s three-so-far scandals- except for of course pregnancy-gate because it is tangentially related to sex.

We still haven’t heard a mainstream report of the fact that she kept the money from the infamous “bridge-to-nowhere” and barely a peep about how her much ballyhooed statement that she “told congress ‘no’ to the bridge-to-nowhere” was a bunch of BS and that she actually supported it during her campaign for governor.

But the unreported story is that the only reason she refused the bridge was that she was able to take advantage of indicted Senator Ted Steven’s congressional earmark by keeping the money and using it for something else.

And the trooper-gate story remains only a mere mention with the line that it’s “being investigated by the Alaska legislature”. Anyone wanting the eye-opening real story on that can search out the Mudflats blogger who calls himself AKMuckraker (thanks to Ian Lind for the link).

Today he reports this recent quote from Palin:

“Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God.”

So for the whole tale we have to turn off Blitzer and turn to an Alaskan blogger who has gone from a tiny-little site to getting thousands of hits in the last few days because Wolf’s wusses can’t or won’t do the job

What the heck is going on these days with the press? It’s more non-existent than ever. Even the usual sycophantic gruel is thinner than usual.

It’s easy to blame the corporate mainstream media itself. In the past 30 years the road from watchdog to lapdog is well trodden ground. Noam Chomsky does some excellent analysis of how the corporately-trained journalists know their marching orders and don’t even have to be shown the drumbeat to dance to if they hope to move up to become the editor and gatekeeper.

But now we are beginning to hear from journalists- even alternative types – who seem to forget all that in favor of faulting the de-staffing of newsrooms that has spread the coverage so thin that there’s no time to report the stories that matter much less give them perspective and depth..

But the fact that reporters now spend more than 10 minutes at google and call it investigative reporting notwithstanding, it’s days like this that make you wonder whether this “no-time” excuse from our friends working in the MSM is really valid.

Because it certainly wouldn’t have taken any extra time to cover this outrage in St. Paul or find news about Palin other than the pregnant-teenage-daughter drivel.

Commenting on our labor day piece yesterday a former long-time MSM reporter emailed to say:

When I started working as a union member, the unions were strong and their value wasn't that clear to folks without a grasp of labor history. In these difficult times, particularly in the news industry, the values of solidarity are much easier to see.

And yet those swept away in the bloodletting at places like the Honolulu Advertiser seem to still follow the self-interested all-for-one-and-all-for-one” credo we detailed yesterday until it’s too late.

Maybe it’s reporters’ inability to self-criticize the corporate newsroom as it developed over the years that’s led them to find the end of the primrose path after all.

When people have to go to the alternative press for the mainstream news it doesn’t bode well for the so called news industry.

Perhaps we should all just wish them well and warn them not to let the door hit them in the ass on their way out.