Every day I look to the front pages of many Blogs for analysis of recent news releases from various media sources. While this analysis is invaluable, it is also important for us to keep in mind this important thought:
For much of its life the castle has been owned by members of the Hamilton family. The older part of the castle is said to be haunted by a “Grey Lady” who starved to death in the dungeons of the castle because she had the plague.
Pretty symbolic of the New York times plight as they are starved of readership. Many of those readers will now avoid them like they have the plague. The irony is that the Grey Lady is avoiding the REAL NEWS like the plague, and that affects our liberty.
Judy Miller can proudly turn to her fellow neocon elitist elbow-rubbers and proclaim “Mission Accomplished!” as she drags the NY Times down to the gutter with her.
Mind you, her editors have helped that situation along as well, by failing to get the stories that, in the past, they would have been breaking.
Stick a fork in the Grey Lady. She’s done.
“Baby let me follow you down…”
(Below the fold, that is!)
While the death of the Grey Lady is a huge story that affects all of us that hate to live in the ignorance of the information blackout created by the corporate controlled media, that isn’t what I wanted to write about.
I wanted to write about YOU! (I’ll get there.)
This Newswire release is a perfect example of what YOU can do to help yourself, and how YOU can shine a little light on that information:
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 U.S. Newswire —
For the second time in as many days and the third time in a week, VelvetRevolution.us affiliate RawStory.com has scooped the mainstream media in the Valerie Plame affair and publicly named a second witness who is cooperating with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.
“Now, those close to the investigation say that a second Cheney aide, David Wurmser, has agreed to provide the prosecution with evidence that the leak was a coordinated effort by Cheney’s office to discredit the agent’s husband. … Wurmser, Cheney’s Middle East advisor and an assistant to then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Bolton, likely cooperated because he faced criminal charges for his role in leaking Wilson’s name on the orders of higher-ups, the sources said.”
Last week, RawStory was the first to report that Fitzgerald was actively investigating Vice President Cheney and the White House Iraq Group. Yesterday, RawStory was the first to report that VP aide John Hannah had made a deal to cooperate.
Oh yeah! Kudos to RawStory!
And kudos to you too, since they are kindof like one of us. BUT one of us that has taken the extra step to go beyond the cutting and pasting of some other writer’s stories and just analyzing it.
They are chasing down leads, asking the questions, and getting to the sources themselves. They have led the charge from the front on important stories.
YOU CAN TOO!
To be realistic about it all, YOU cannot afford to sit back and wait for the next breaking story from the MSM. If you haven’t noticed yet, that story isn’t coming from them anytime soon.
But YOU can try to write it!
(I told you this was a story about YOU! Just took me a while to get there, OK?)
Here is what YOU have to do:
The next time that you know there is news coming out don’t just sit back and wait for it to break elsewhere… Pick up a phone and call the likely sources of information yourself. Set up an appointment through their staffers to go to their offices if they are nearby. Ask them for a quote. Ask them for their opinion.
Ask the god-damned follow up questions yourselves. The questions that no one in the MSM will ask!
Then get behind your keyboard and start writing your own personal scoop!
As I mentioned earlier, the analysis that most of the Blogosphere gives is extremely useful, and given the quality of the writings by many of YOU Bloggers, the entertainment value of them is often top-notch as well. Most of YOU have already developed the skills to make that leap into real journalism.
Do yourselves, and your readers a favour:
Follow RawStory’s initiative
and take the leap.
If it helps you to decide to finally make this leap from being a Blogger and crossing over into real journalism, well, I have read most of your Blogs and diaries already.
I think YOU can do it.
If that doesn’t help you decide, well, maybe $money$ can be your driving force to make the leap?
NOTE TO ALL SUCH CONSPIRATORS:
On September 15th, VR posted a $100,000 reward for new information implicating senior White House Officials in the outing of Valerie Plame, so quick cooperation can not only limit jail time but also result in substantial income** But if their past decisions are any indication, the conspirators will go down with the ship, believing until the end that George Bush will pardon them for their crimes, which he will not do if he too is indicted, and which he may not do if he wants to maintain a legacy better than Richard Nixon.
There is 100,000 great reasons to get involved NOW!
“Well I’ll do anything in this godalmighty world If you just let me follow you down.”
Here is how easy it really is:
Picking up the phone…
(Calling a source here. Give me a minute, OK?)
CT Man1(Drinking Leberally in New Milford): Will Wurmser and/or Hannah be notified of this reward offered by VelvetRevolutions if they should qualify to claim it?
Ilene Proctor (VelevetRevolution PR spokesperson): I don’t know.
That wasn’t too hard, eh? Wow! I did it.
You can too!
I also asked Mrs. Proctor about the possibility of Bloggers qualifying for the reward and she said that VelevetRevolution would have to make any final decisions on who might qualify for it.
Relatively painless…
Unless, of course, you take notes as slowly as I do?
Ask a question and get an answer. Now, all of the sudden I have just crossed the line from Blogging into journalism. Or, at the very least, I have blurred the line between the two. Yes, they were silly questions given the mountains of information we have to work with.
But it means that I can do it.
And YOU can too!
Heck! If I can do this, that means most of you are over-qualified to do it! Just look at what RawStory has accomplished in order fully understand your own potential to make a difference, and what YOU can accomplish if YOU try just a bit harder.
Take that one extra step and carry the banner of investigative reporting.
The main difference between what most Bloggers are doing and what RawStory is doing?
RawStory is not waiting for the MSM to get to the sources. Meanwhile, the MSM is avoiding real, honest “hard news” and questions like the plague. RawStory is picking up those phones, and going out in search of their own quotable quotes. They are digging for information that would otherwise never see the light of day.
They are leading the way in how ALL BLOGGERS can become the Internet version of what the Grey Lady, RIP, used to be.
In the past these stories may have been front page news on the Grey Lady days before the rest of the media would have even noticed this issue. With the death of the Grey Lady it has all been left in YOUR hands.
“To you from failing hands, we throw the torch.
Be yours to lift it high.”