...and Stroocks Books as well. Why else would Tucker say so many things that the Globalists don't like? Reader(s) of this blog know we are paid handsomely in 100 rubble bills for writing Russian misinformation at Inforos and Infobics.
Tucker Carlson asks why he/we/you/I should hate Vladimir Putin:
Why do Democrats want you to hate Putin? Has Putin shipped every middle class job in your town to Russia? Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked your business? Is he teaching your kids to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Does he eat dogs? pic.twitter.com/xYEvapjbNT
How much of the Ukraine crisis for the Dems is about Trump? Dems think Putin tilted the 2016 election toward Trump. They think Trump colluded with Russia. They impeached Trump over his perfect phone call with Ukraine. Never mind that Trump isn't getting 10 percent from Ukraine like 'the big guy'. The United States is drifting into an economic crisis and possibly a shooting war because of the Dem's bizarre obsession.
Russia's economy is about the size of Italy's. Russia's population is less than half that of the United States' and declining. Russia can project power into the Norwegian Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean and no further. Russia is no existential threat to the US.
Sometimes this blog wonders if younger reader(s) really know what the Cold War was like. There was constant tension and the threat of annihilation percolating beneath everyday life. There were two superpowers with massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons, armies facing off in Europe, constant air and naval confrontations. In 1985, Russia/USSR truly was a threat. Now? Well, Russia has started a border war with Ukraine. We yawn.
Some great thoughts in comments on our idea about a Muj Tet against Soviet occupied Kabul. Would you people stop calling me Mr. Stroock and look me up on FB or something.
Here's Canada's greatest Jew and valiant free speech warrior, Ezra Levant, on Tucker Carlson talking about the dozens of churches vandalized in Justin's Canada. Of course Fidel Castro's bastard child isn't doing anything about it.
Anaaaaand speaking of Tucker, the NSA has indeed been spying on Tucker Carlson. He was talking to Soviet intermediaries about getting an interview with Putin. You know what this means. The NSA has been spying on our Russian collusion. Which is pretty cool.
So here's how things go when we write for Inforos. Usually we'll email Moscow, 'Hi Maxim. Want something on Ilhan Omar for this week?' and he says, 'Sure. 100 rubles, comrade.' Sometimes we'll wait for Maxim to email us for an idea. This is the writer's equivalent of putting on a slinky black dress, strappy heels, and hanging out at the corner of the bar. It's nice to be wanted.
[Knobhead-Ed]
Oh, we're sorry. Did we just describe your Saturday night?
Anyway...Our value to Inforos is being they're man on the ground in the US, reporting on American politics, among other things. We've written that America should leave Afghanistan and withdrawal from NATO. Those ideas are our own. Maxim has never asked us to write an article bashing American foreign policy.
You know, every once in a while (including the last three days) this blog gets blasted by a visitor from Sweden. This individual will view a couple hundred pages in one visit. Presumably the Feds are smart enough to cover their whereabouts. So is that them? Is an intern in the basement of the Hoover Building scanning our blog?
Also, at least once a week we get strange friend requests on FB from accounts purporting to be young women. It's not that we think young women can't be interested in us...
[Seriously, you're a knobhead-Ed]
...They can be and are. After all we're an in-shape middle aged man of some renown who routinely scores Superior on the Dad Achievement Chart (DAC). We cook, we clean, we did Mr. Mom duty with all three of our girls, and we run a first rate dad-taxi service. We've got decent handyman skills, in fact we're handy in every room of the house. We spent two hours at the pool with our youngest yesterday, playing in the water. That's like crack for women. There's no reason why a beautiful 25 year old woman wouldn't be attracted to us. None whatsoever. Still, the FB friend requests are suspicious. Could that also be the Feds?
[Now you're being paranoid-Ed]
What Will's Watching: An Ordinary Man. Ben Kingsley plays an unnamed Serbian general, a war criminal wanted by NATO and the UN for crimes committed during the Jugoslav Civil War. The General called the massacres he perpetuated 'a down payment on the future'. He is a hero to the older generation, but the younger generation, represented by his 26 year old maid, doesn't understand. Serbia has moved on. The General is alienated from the nation he helped create. We think Kingsley has been mooching off his Oscar for Gandhi since 1982, but he gives a brilliant performance here. An Ordinary Man is tense and grim without being dystopian. 3/4
Mrs. Stroock, who is not yet cleared to drive, sent us to the grocery store to pick up a few things. It will surprise some readers that in New Jersey, one can purchase fireworks at one's local Shoprite.
Mrs. Stroock not pleased.
Remember, there are half a million Hindus in this state. Diwali, which is like Christmas and Guy Fawkes Day rolled into one, is now a school holiday here in Bridgewater. You say fireworks. We say, 1st Amendment. Actually, the Bridgewater police department is very accommodating about fireworks and lists what's legal and not before telling residents to be careful and have fun.
For the love of Kek would you people call me Will and look me up on FB and or Gab? A valued reader suggested a book in the comments. The book looks great and at some point we will pick it up, thanks. But one must needs be careful with these situations. One of the many reasons we don't read fiction anymore is that we don't want other people's ideas creeping into our own. That being said, we're gonna get this one so as to improve our own work's realism.
Tucker Carlson tells us that the NSA has been spying on him. This blog assumes the Feds are reading its communications. So when we message a buddy of ours, 'Hey did you see that sideline NFL cheerleader? Nice tits,' we figure an FBI agent is logging it. We're not kidding. We write for Inforos after all. Right now we're working on a piece for our commie handler on budget reconciliation and the filibuster. Real subversive stuff. We suspect the Feds would argue that by writing legit news, we're providing cover for Soviet disinformation. In fact, the media has made that argument before.
[Do you really think you could be in some sort of legal trouble?-Ed]
We'll put it this way. We cannot 100% rule out the possibility that the Feds will concoct something against us. Look at what they did to General Flynn, Roger Stone, etc etc. We have a plan. More likely is some coordinated press campaign. They hit Inforos last summer and even quoted one of our articles, without attribution, mind you. Assuming Amazon didn't cancel us, getting the media spotlight would be a great way to sell books.
[Knobhead-Ed]
Anywhoo...Sometimes one writes a thing without really knowing what it's about. We've been doing that with the 8th Infantry Division's counterattack. But then we had that flash of inspiration, that lightening across the sky. The point of the chapter, the theme, is that the 8th finally has a chance to bring about a battle on its terms. When the moment comes, can marshal all it's resources at the decisive point. Hello arty, MLRS and Apaches.
We got back to The Great Nuclear War of 1975 yesterday; Argentine chapter. So far, we like what we. Pressing onward. Ever onward. And we did so during the late afternoon in a Mavis Tire waiting room. You see, we got in the car to take the girls to the pool, and noticed we had a tire air pressure problem. That's when we saw the screw in the tire. And so Kek laughed...
You can't reason or argue with these people. For those wondering, Carpenter has already been doxxed.* Oh well. In the clip Tucker basically threatens to do the same. That's what needs to be done. As Gregory Peck cynically said in The Guns of Navarone, you've got to be just as nasty as they other guy. Now do The Times editors. Barry Soetoro once said it, punch back twice as hard. *No. We won't republish his info. We're not like them. Not hardly. We did send him a terse email. Oh yes are we impressed with oursevles.
There are 222 cases of the Wuhan Coronavirus from Wuhan in Bridgewater and 26 deaths. Somerset County has published some interesting data on the infections. It's mostly old people. The price of gas has finally plummeted here but the store shelves are a bit thin. Our local Shoprite is only getting deliveries every other day or so. Meat is in short supply. We already have a strategic toilet paper reserve that borders on hoarding. Actually toilet paper is getting easier to find.
Again, for the record, we think Governor Murphy did ok, more or less, on Tucker Carlson the other night. No, we're not happy with his answer on the Bill of Rights.
Murph has extended the school lockdown till May 15th, which leaves a glimmer of hope, actually since he hasn't shut it down altogether.
[Oh, he's Murph now is he?-Ed}
Yesterday Dr. Oz said we could open the schools again and only lose two three percent. We don't think that came out the way he meant it. At this point millions of parents are thinking those would be acceptable losses....
Since their father is a coffee addict, the Stroocklettes have expressed interest in same, especially Middle Daughter, whose a bit on the short side. Mrs. Stroock, who lives more or less like a Mormon, expressed concerns about coffee stunting Middle Daughter's growth. So we googled it. According to the NYTs, Harvard and the Mayo Clinic (ham on 5*), this is a myth.
[You're trusting the NYTs and the Ivy League now? Do you hear yourself, luv?-Ed]
Like all good husbands we don't get a lot of wins here, so we're celebrating like it's VE Day.
Our own Governor Phil Murphy was on Tucker Carlson last night for an extended segment. We don't have many complaints about the man generally, and have no complaints about him specifically on the Kung flu. A tough an interesting interview:
It will surprise no one that this blog really likes Tucker Carlson (PBUH). He was sounding the alarm about the Wuhan Chicom Virus from Communist China three months ago. Now he's asking tough questions about the quarantine, namely, just how long does this go on?
Zeke Emanuel, former medical adviser to Barry, thinks everyone should kick it at 75* and everyone should stay home until we have a vaccine. We love it when people who have jobs tell people who lost there's to just stay at home and suck it up.
To be honest we're not sure we understand the Dem's agenda or strategy here.
But we do understand something about being unemployed, not between jobs, not out of work till the company hires you back in 6 weeks. Un. Em. Ployed.
In 1998 we did a 7 month stint. In 2000 we did an 8 month stint. We're using that terminology because being unemployed is like a goddamn prison. After we threw in the towel in April of 2001 and went back to school (online) it was over two years between paychecks.
After a time we worked out a routine, thank god. We read a lot at least, but to this day we regret not making ourselves sit down and write. We'd actually publish our first peace in 2003 and there's no reason we couldn't have pulled it off in '98 or '01 at the latest.
We didn't drink much and didn't touch drugs, thank god. But there were still a lot of sleepless nights. We'd just put our head down, feel an overwhelming tightness in our chest and just get up. We spent a lot of time sitting on the couch at 2 AM wondering what we were doing wrong and what we'd done to deserve this.
We had a lot of restless afternoons with plenty of driving around, cruising really, just to get out of the house. It was at least as stressful as being at work and we noticed we finally settled down after picking Mrs. Stroock up from work. We didn't want to answer the phone because we didn't want the person on the other end to know we were unemployed. We didn't like stepping out for the same reason. We dressed nicer than we normally would have just so we wouldn't look or feel like a derelict.
The words for the feeling: degrading, demoralizing, de-legitimizing, depressing. We should have been mainlining Prozac. And one more word: humiliating. Utterly humiliating.
The damage is permanent. This horrible residue clings to every memory of the time as if to say, 'Yeah, that was fun but it's not like you had anything to do Monday morning...' The time is never not there, it is never not a part of us, it is never not on the surface. Were the time an appendage we'd be always aware of it, like a toe or thumb.
So when a cord-yanker like Zeke Emanuel blithely says we need to stay home for 18 months regardless of the consequences he can go suck on a DNR.
We are amused that the Democrat Party, who for a decade and a half has treated John Bolton like a condensed rock of evil sitting in a toaster oven*, now pin their hopes on him. A disgruntled employee with a book to sell is a great witness, no?
We had the Milo Moment. We're coming out of the Jordan Peterson Moment. It seems we are entering the Tucker Carlson Moment.
Tucker's been taking a rapier to conservative tropes, free trade, tax breaks for businesses, etc etc. Nowhere has he been more effective, or righteously vicious than in foreign policy.
Tucker Carlson wants to know why Max Boot and William Kristol are still on TV and what makes them so smart, anyway? He unloads upon the duo like a sinner reformed, which he is. Carlson quotes Boot's words, written after 9/11:
“Once we have deposed Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in Baghdad, to go along with the one in Kabul,” Boot wrote. “To turn Iraq into a beacon of hope for the oppressed peoples of the Middle East: Now that would be a historic war aim. Is this an ambitious agenda? Without a doubt. Does America have the resources to carry it out? Also without a doubt.”
That's certainly what we thought. We believed in 2003 that by say 2008 Iraq would be free, the Iranian Mullahs overthrown in a revolution and the PLO sidelined.
Carlson points out that after Iraq Boot called for regime change in Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, etc etc.
William Stroock dot blogspot dotcom stands by our support for liberating Iraq. It was the right place and 2003-2008 was the right time to fight Islamic terror. Would Iraq or the world be better off with Saddam in power? And besides, we won.
The difference between ourselves and Boot, Kristol, etc is we've had enough.
[Yeah, but knowing what you know now would you still favor the 'liberation' of Iraq, as you say?-Ed]
Over the last few years various pundits and intellectuals have had their moment to shine - and cash in!
2015 was the Milo Moment.
2018 was the Jordan Peterson Moment.
It seems 2019 will be the Tucker Carlson moment. A few days ago he hammered Mitt Romney (Looser, Nowhere) over his anti-Trump op-ed. Here's the full video:
Tucker brutalizes Mittens over his time at Bain Capital. He said:
His piece throws a rare compliment to Trump for cutting the corporate rate a year ago.
That’s not surprising. Romney spent the bulk of his business career at a firm called Bain Capital. Bain Capital all but invented what is now a familiar business strategy: Take over an existing company for a short period of time, cut costs by firing employees, run up the debt, extract the wealth, and move on, sometimes leaving retirees without their earned pensions. Romney became fantastically rich doing this.
This is not normally how conservatives talk.
Like us, Tucker was a pretty standard post-Reagan conservative filled with policy ideas. In 2003 he supported the liberation of Iraq. Not anymore. He's happy we're getting out of Syria.
Now it seems he is an American Firster and an economic nationalist.
Tucker has talked widely about his intellectual transformation and we urge reader(s) to look him up on YouTube. His conversations with Dave Rubin and Ben Shapiro are fascinating.
Tucker Carlson seems to be the pundit who best channels Trump, or at least the Trump voter.
At the risk of doing two foreign policy posts in one day, we think pulling out of Syria is a fantastic idea.
The United States still has troops in Afghanistan.
We don't know what for, or the way forward or the way out of the Hindu Kush.
As Ricky Watters might ask, 'For who? For what?'
We've kicked around ISIS in Iraq and Syria and now we're declaring victory and going home.
Why not?
Many of the usual suspects have voiced their disapproval. Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham we respect, but when Marco Rubio sounds off, we know leaving is the right decision.
If ISIS pops up again why not let Assad handle things? We know he can take care of business, though in any mop up effort he wouldn't respect ISIS' Civil Rights. We consider that a plus.
We are sad to lose General Mattis, of course, but if that's the price of getting out of the Middle East, so be it.
Below the great Tucker Carlson echoes out thoughts in a very interesting discussion:
Last week we took note of Tucker Carlson's explosive interview with Ralph Peters and Max Boot. Here's the episode with Boot, which is the more important of the two:
Boot is an intellectual. He writes books. He has a fellowship and a fancy pants foreign policy think tank.
Watching this clip one gets the impression that this was the first time in decades Boot's been challenged. He didn't do very well, did he?
Over at the National Interest we have an interesting article on the episode. Basically, Carlson was once a hawk but not anymore.
See, speaking as a neocons myself, the problem is your always looking for the next enemy. I subscribed to William Kristol's The Weekly Standard from the first issue. All through the late 90's they were ginning up China as the enemy. Now you have to remember something. During the Reagan Administration the people running the state department were neocons, guys like Wolfowitz and Pearle and Abrrams and a host of others. With the Soviet Union gone these guys had nothing to do.
Whether or not the Iraq campaign was wrong or worth it no longer matters. Ten years ago now we were finally winning via the Surge. For our part we are far more interested in the mechanics and details of the Iraq campaign than the arguments for and against. We think the evens of 2006-2008 are fascinating. We will go on record again as supporting the liberation Iraq, still.
The point is we have learned. Syria is basically a smaller version of Iraq and when it comes to intervention we have no stomach for it. That said we don't think a few tomahawk strikes on the Syrian air force are a big deal.
But it seems Boot and company are eager to get into Syria. Worse, they think Russia is the great existential threat. Just like China in the late 90's, the neocons must now gin up Russia as the enemy. Look, Russia is not our friend. We are not best buddies. We're never really going to get on. We rivals, we're adversaries. That doesn't make Russia an existential threat. What the hell do we care if Putin is monkeying around with Ukraine? Besides, Putin is killing a lot of ISIS terrorists, isn't he?
Since the war began, Bull Feathers had remained open
24 hours a day. Located down the street from the Cannon House Office Building,
the owner felt it was his patriotic duty to remain open so congressional staff
had a place to unwind after Congresses marathon sessions. Besides, he was
making a small fortune.
The
time approached midnight as the Vice President's chief of staff sat down at a
table in the back corner, far away from the chattering young congressional
staffers. The chief watched in amusement. Young people dropped shot glasses into
beer classes and chugged. One young man did a Jell-O shot from between the breasts of a young woman, the pair shouted 'bipartisanship!'
and high fived. The chief wasn't surprised by the display. His
colleagues at the District's major universities, George Washington and Georgetown,
reported that students were skipping class, ignoring course work and generally
enjoying themselves. A certain fatalism had set in amongst the young, he had
noticed, a consequence, he supposed of being raised on tales of nuclear
Armageddon. He wondered what he would do if he were twenty years old.
The
chief finally saw the rest of his party. The under secretary of defense walked
past the gaggle of young drunks and sat down. The two shook hands.
'Bill,'
the undersecretary said, 'Thanks for meeting me here.'
'Not
at all, Paul,' Bill replied. He pointed to his drink, 'Want one?'
'Sure.'
Paul
flagged down a waitress and ordered a whisky.
Bill
nodded to the young people at the bar and said, 'You think they know something
we don't?'
Paul
smirked, 'I think they're acting like young people.'
Bill
shook his head. 'The whole city is paralyzed. Those who haven't left town stay
indoors. It took me ten minutes to get here from my house in Northern
Virginia.'
'I
think those kids,' Paul nodded to the bar again, 'are using this as an excuse.'
Bill
sipped his drink and shook his head. 'I think if you had seen movies like The Day After as a kid, you might be
fatalistic about the war.'
'Eh. I
saw On the Beach as a kid.' Paul
sipped his drink. 'Business?'
'Business,'
Bill agreed.
'Tell
me, what does your boss think about the war?'
'He
doesn't,' said Bill. 'The Vice President is grateful that the President has
found a role for him.'
'I
think inviting him to the NSA meetings is the right thing,' Paul said. 'I know
the president insisted, in case something happens to him, he wants Quayle up to
speed.'
Bill
nodded.
'Let
me ask you, what does the vice president think should happen next?'
Bill
laughed. 'So that's what this is about.'
Paul
nodded.
'The
Vice President is not in the policy loop and he hasn't expressed one way or the
other what he thinks should happen next.'
'Do
you know what transpired at meeting at St. John last week?'
'No.'
'Thatcher
wants to invade Eastern Europe.'
'Jesus.'
'So
does Kohl.'
'They're
serious?' Bill asked.
Paul
nodded.
'What
does the president think?'
'He's
cautious as you know.'
'Is
that bad?'
'I
didn't say it was bad. Just that he is cautious.'
'What
do you think?'
'Think
about this, Bill, and Thatcher made this point at St. John. What if the war
stops, the Soviets recoup, and we have to do this all over again?'
'Mmmmm,'
Bill said in thought.
'What
if it's like 1918 and the Soviet Army feels it's been stabbed in the back?'
'I
see where you're headed.'
'Now
think about this, and I think you'll agree. What if we win the war decisively?
What if we took away the Soviet's ability to wage war on the west?'
Apropos of yesterday's post about Tucker Carlson vs Ralph Peters and Max Boot, let's imagine the United States never liberated Iraq. What would the Middle East look like?
President Bush basically ends the war with victory in Afghanistan.
-In 2017 American forces are still in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida.
-The 'Arab Spring' still happens. It happened organically within the Arab world and independently of anything the U.S. did.
-Mubarak is still out in Egypt with the same Brotherhood to military rule we have today.
-The Iran situation is unchanged. They are still working on nukes. Iran is still partnered with Hezbollah.
-Re Israel, there is every reason to think the 2002, 2006, 2009, and 2014 wars still happen.
-Because we have the Arab Spring we still have the rise of ISIS.
Really, the great question here is what does Saddam do? We think the most likely Saddam scenario is:
-Sanctions lifted.
-when the Arab Spring comes Iraq is plunged into a massive civil war like Syria but on a larger scale.
-Iran backs the Shia in Iraq.
-The Gulf States back the Sunnis and Saddam.
-The US backs the Kurds.
So we think the Middle East is still in turmoil but many of the details are different.
By the Way, World War 1990: Operation Eastern Storm has Saddam invading Kuwait. One of the things we will deal with in the final novel is the implications of a world where Saddam is the king of the Middle East.
Via the incomparable Ace, we have two interviews by the equally incomparable Tucker arguing with Ralph Peters and Max Boot about Russia and Iraq.
We are with Tucker on Russia, we just don't see where Putin is a threat. What do we care if he messes with Ukraine? We're perfectly happy that he blew Chechnya to smithereens and quite pleased with his actions in Syria. Basically the interests of Russia and the U.S. are temporarily aligned.
Now Max Boot wanted to remove the Mullahs in Afghanistan, Saddam in Iraq, Qadafi (pick a spelling, I don't care) in Libya, and Assad in Syria. And here he is trying to recast Putin's Russia as the Evil Empire of 1985. It is as if he never learns.
Look folks, we're an unrepentant Neocon at least on Iraq. We think the liberation is was right and good. We lost 4,500 dead and 40,000 wounded. We spent a trillion dollars and who cares about that. You're average lefty would be thrilled to spend a trillion on condoms, birth control pills and abortions so please. We can debate those points but the fact is we won the war in Iraq.
Personally we never saw the point in getting rid of Qadafi who was a benign and somewhat helpful dictator. We recall the 80's where Reagan kept having to whack him around. Mo hadn't made trouble since. Here's the intro to an article we wrote about him for S&T:
On
the night of 14 April, 1986, a flight of A-6 Intruders and A-7 Corsairs from
the carriers USS America and USS Coral Sea launched a barrage of 42
HARM and Shrike missiles at radar and Surface to Air Missile sites all along
the Libyan Coast. This was just the opening salvo. Eighteen American F-111 Aardvarks bombed
Libyan airfields and installations, including the headquarters of Colonel
Muamar Qadhafi, and destroyed more than a dozen aircraft. This was not the
first military encounter between Libyan and American forces. On 24 March, the
two navies fought a series of skirmishes which cost the Libyans five naval
craft. As far back as 1981, American
F-14s had engaged and destroyed a pair of Libyan Mig-25s which had challenged
them in the disputed Gulf of Sidra. The American raid of 14 April, called Operation
El Dorado Canyon, may not have been the first battle between the two nations,
but it was the last. To
Americans of a certain age, Colonel Muamar Qadhafi, president for life of
Libya, is a blustering buffoon, a toy dictator mocked on T-shirts calling him
‘Qadhafi Duck’. For much of Africa, however, Qadhafi was a dangerous
revolutionary, seeding chaos and terror throughout the continent. Seeking to
spread his brand of Pan Arab Marxism, Qadhafi has waged war against the nations
of Egypt, Uganda, and Chad. Like his ill-advised skirmish with the United
States, Qadhafi’s African adventures ended in failure and humiliation, costing
billions in treasure and equipment and thousands of lives.
At least he held no truck with Isis and AQ. When Barry threatened to bomb Syria in 2011 we were dead set against it. Frankly, after Iraq we had had enough.
Libya is Hillary!'s greatest accomplishment.
The Question Peters and Carlson debate on, and we think it was a useful back and forth which both men, managed to keep civil after nearly crossing the line, was the liberation of Iraq good in the long run.
We supported the liberation of Iraq. We saw it as part of the horribly named war on terror. We thought it was a good thing. In the words of M. Wolfowitz we thought the liberation would be a 'cakewalk'. Well that didn't happen. Peters says he would not today support such an action.
Ourselves? Ok, Iraq chose electors to a constitutional convention, had a referendum on that constitution, elected a government, had another election and even a peaceful transfer of power.
Iraq is playing a major role in the defeat of ISIS.
For the last decade I've loved watching the media die. Its been a slow death, I wish it could be slower. These over-educated, self-important buffoons can't figure out why their industry is dying
Via Instapundit we have this internal memo from the Boston Globe on its latest bought of restructuring. Here's my favorite part:
Newsroom culture. It will analyze how we can become a more nimble learning culture, with a collective understanding that we need to constantly experiment and change, tolerate failure, and become more entrepreneurial. This will require more training across the room, but what kind of training do we need? How do we transform our mindset? How, in general, do we behave more like a startup and less like a legacy company as we fight for our lives?
Workflows. Consider this the byplay between print and digital. What's getting in the way of us becoming a more streamlined and effective digital-thinking organization? How do we take advantage of every position we have? Again, who needs what training? Do we need a separate print desk? Can we free up department heads from the obligation of filling sections? Do we have the right technology?
Editorial mission. This looks at where we devote our resources -- and why? Should we still be covering the same beats we have for the past half century? Should we have beats? Should we have departments, or at least the ones we have now? Is there a better way to present our material online and in print? Can we get away from certain kinds of stories and coverage areas and redirect our resources to focus on specific aspects of greater Boston?
That's a of word salad on internal process, what goes where, who gets what. Process is real important here.
Now here's a clip of Tucker Carlson trying to get to the bottom of a story with a Newsweek journo Kurt Eichenwald:
Now, about the 3 minute mark he starts talking about how he was reporting a story, who he talked to, when and such. Again we see an obsession with process rather than news. In their world its the process that it's important. Eichenwald even says, 'I'm giving reporting process here'. Eichenwald spends six minutes trying to take us through the process. The end of this is breathtaking as he over explains the CIA.
Imagine asking Eichenwald if the sun rises in the east, he couldn't give a one word answer, he'd have to explain the process by which he reported that the sun rises in the east.
These organization are the are news and in their minds, they are the news.
Its not the news that matters to them, its the process by which they report the news that matters to them.
As the late Andrew Bretibart (PBUH) once said, dear media, it's not your business model that sucks, it's you that sucks.
