Speaking Of The Catamite Press*

[*See yesterday's blog, Oscar Über Alles]

The pathetic boobs who keep dissing blogs for their "lack of standards" put their whole, corrupt, creaky system of "NEWS" on display last night in reporting Al Gore's Oscar (OK, the Oscar won by Guggenheim, et al for the DOCUMENTARY on Al Gore). The mindless xerox machine of a world press allows imbecilic mistakes sorely lacking in professionalism to be broadcast around the world without anyone NOTICING the idiocy. Where we used to have any number of reporters, increasingly, it's the AP hack assigned whose story becomes the ONLY historical record of major events. And this is merely symptomatic.

From the Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune (whose headline was identical to the Indianapolis Star's pseudo-Variety style headline -- increasingly, the HEADLINE is the ONLY piece of the newspaper that was written in town; the rest is straight off the all-but-monopoly Associated Press):

Gore's Global Warming Doc Wins Oscar
By GARY GENTILE
Monday, February 26, 2007

LOS ANGELES - "An Inconvenient Truth," the documentary that turned former vice president Al Gore's power-point presentation on global warming into an engaging and entertaining film, won the Oscar Sunday night...

"My fellow Americans," Gore said to laughter from the crowd. "People all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis. It's not a political issue, it's a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started with the possible will to act. That's a renewable resource. Let's renew it."

Doesn't anything about that statement, er, BOTHER you? Like, NOT MAKE SENSE? (Or, are you one of those Republican brainwashing victims who believed the phony quote about Gore saying he "invented the internet"? -- another garbled quote, albeit intentionally garbled.)

Here is the ACTUAL transcript of Gore's 'acceptance' speech (courtesy of Grist.com)

Thank you. I want to thank Tipper and my family. I want to thank the Academy and everyone on this amazing team.

My fellow Americans ... [audience laughs]

People all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis. It's not a political issue; it's a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act. That's a renewable resource -- let's renew it.

And that's what I heard. But AP reporter "Gary Gentile" managed to send out his mangled quote (and it's obviously mangled to anyone who heard it) and HUNDREDS of newspaper editors around the USA and around the world didn't notice it, and printed an ungrammatical, UNathoritative bit of lower-than-amateur journalism! One is surprised they spelled Gore's name right.

And, if they had bothered to read the Washington Post writer William Booth's piece (reprinted in the SF Chronicle yesterday), Al was PRE-quoted, so it can't be that DIFFICULT.

... "AIT," as Team Gore calls it, is also the hot pick for Best Documentary, and if its director, Davis Guggenheim, wins an Oscar, he plans to bring Gore along with him to the stage to accept the golden statuette and perhaps say a few words about ... interstitial glacial melting? (More likely, Gore will deliver a favorite line about "political will being a renewable resource.") ...

So, here's a very partial listing of The DUMBASS Honor Roll (for watching the damned thing on TV, and not noticing that the quote was garbled, and incoherent, but going ahead and printing it mindlessly, anyway):

• Guardian Unlimited, England
• San Francisco Chronicle, California
• Indianapolis (Indiana) Star
• Kansas City Star, Missouri
• Miami Herald, Florida
• Forbes Online
• Chandler News-Dispatch, Minn.
• Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio
• Business Portal 24 (press release), Germany
• San Jose Mercury News, California
• The Hindu, India
• WJLA, Washington DC
• Jordan Falls News, Iowa
• Bismarck Tribune, N. Dakota
• Brocktown News, Nevada
• Carlisle Sentinel, Pennsylvania
• Foster's Daily Democrat, N. Hampshire
• Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Penn.
• Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Florida
• The Columbian, Washington State
• Sabah, Turkey (English Language Edition)
• San Luis Obispo Tribune, California
• Denver Post, Colorado
• Fox News (everywhere)

and, finally,

• The Washington Post, Washington, DC

[Your dead gopher 'awards' will be arriving in the mail, so watch for them, newspaper types!]

GreenPrices, Netherlands and News24, South Africa got the quote right (not on the AP feed, of course), as did the Cybercast News Service (formerly the Conservative News Service). Hell, even the Budapest Business Journal, Hungary got the quote right. But the 'mainstream' newspapers of America excelled at what they're best at these days: acting comatose.

An evil little toad at the NY POST named Ian Bishop did some weird things to the quote, (because he's a Rupert Murdoch employee, porobably), but got it correct anyway, even though he's a Rupert Murdoch employee.

Oh. The "cute" headline was from AP, since Akron, Indianapolis, Casper, etc. all quote it. So not even that much was locally generated. Newspapers are getting to be like satellite radio stations: all from faceless central programming, with virtually nothing "local" about them.

"We have everything we need to get started with the possible will to act," doesn't parse. Period.

The point is NOT that "Gary Gentile" elided part of the quote. Typos happen all the time -- especially on deadline. No: It's that NO ONE in the proofreading process, either at AP, or around the world NOTICED IT!

That's how we get our news.

And that's the way it is, Monday, February 6th, two thousand and seven.

Courage.