The military industrial complex has funded a generation of professional lairs, hacks who will spew anything they think will please the fat cats.

Chief, did you even listen to the interview. This kind of B.S. journalism has been happening since the Spanish-American war. The only difference nowadays is the world of blogging has accelerated this kind of “tool man”-ship, but the same basic patterns still exist.

The whole get paid per page view, regardless of the veracity of the content, is the moral bottom line here.

The well is poisoned.  Have a nice day.

Really?  You’ve never heard anyone do this kind of media criticism before?  I suggest you google “yellow journalism” and start there.  

And if her ethics are the _actual_ subject of the excerpt, I will eat my hat. The entire excerpt is an SEO arrow aimed right at getting her back for his butthurt by making his accusations show up on any search of her name. I’m sure he’s thanking you for printing it.

Then I looked at your Twitter login profile, read a page or so of your comments and agreed with most if not all comments I saw. Plus your self-description sounds like  more than a few of my friends. 

Anyway,  I didn’t find the excerpt nearly as bad as you did — I found it interesting and it describes a pervasive problem with not only blogs but media in general. 

The excerpt did not especially read as butthurt. Irin Carmon should be more responsible and her employers are arses for not holding her accountable.

Not only does that lower the credibility of what Irin Carmon writes; it lowers the overall credibility of Salon, since they decided to hire her and give her an outlet.

So it’s more than just an issue of ”butthurt,” as you so flippantly describe it.

Unfortunately, though, an animated one.

I think he said that.  I read it on the internet once.

Every time there’s been a new advance in communication… telegraph, telephone, radio, television, communication satellites, internet… people have rhapsodized about how much closer this brings us all together and how all our mutual understanding will be furthered.

And then it turns out to be just another way for people to be jack asses to each other.

Well, this is how Fox News and talk radio operate too, the manufactured “War On Christmas” angers up the blood and brings in viewers and ad revenue, but it’s based on people trying to be polite by saying the non-sectarian “happy holidays” to strangers who’s faith is an unknown.  In other words they took something harmless (in fact, people trying to do no harm) and turned it into “war.”

Here are some ideas off the top of my head:

1. Stop waiting for lawyers to approve messages. Does your fear of getting fired by your company outweigh the certainty that a bad message about your company gets out there? If so, then frankly, it’s not your problem.

2. You (or your company) might be able to sue for libel, or otherwise sic lawyers on them, but that only further enriches the lawyers and does damage to you or your company anyway, perhaps even more than the original post, right? So maybe you could co-opt your own media manipulators to counter the story. Juice it up a bit to make it as interesting and controversial as the original. Put a big notice on your website, and call them out by name: “Tibbledy Piddlesey’s Comments about Exploding Garbage Cans are Laughable (click to read more)” Respond fast, and respond prominently. The game is to discredit the manipulator as much as they discredited you, because either you can stay silent, or wait and lose the initiative, or take the initiative.

3. ???

4. Profit!

5. What other ideas can you think of?