D&C Editorial Board wilts under the truth.
Check out Rottenchester’s analysis of the D&C back peddling.Â
The net of this is the Democrat and Chronicle editorial board is doing what they do best and towing the line as they wipe the egg off their face.   Frankly, they are running out of sides of the mouth to speak out of.Â
Fact Check? the big bad blogosphere? It was in the Democrat and Chronicle’s own attempt at dipping their toes in that very big bad blogosphere that caused this in the first place.  Â
I’ll have more later on the D&C editorial board from a different perspective when I have chance to unbury myself at the office after a rather interesting adventure earlier in the week.  Meanwhile -
Thanks for the link, but I’m afraid the only thing that will make those dinosaurs wilt is loss of circulation due to the Internet. Tom Tobin and James Lawrence won’t be out of a job because of bad reporting - they’ll be out when the grand edifice of the D&C collapses because nobody wants to read a paper on paper.
That would be too bad. Many, many people still get the majority of their news from the D&C.
Well, Best headline I could come up with at the time. I liked the timeline you did. The D&C is entitled to their own opinions not their own facts.
The D&C and the rest of the MSM sees the news related blogs or at a threat. Something to be controlled or marginalized as opposed to what they really are part of a symbionic relationship. If the media actually was critical of the keepers of power or actually reported the news - political blogs might look entirely different.
The D&C etc attitude of “worse you look better we look” fits a marginalization strategy. Part of what I hope to discuss later.
Nevertheless - in the this case the Lawrence and Tobin are backpeddling so fast that they are tripping over themselves.
Stlo7: I agree that the D&C is going for a lose/lose outcome here. And your headline is fine - I’m mainly frustrated that they’re so impervious to criticism.
Itchy: We are going to see a gradual decline in the D&C. It will be sad to watch, but I hope that other media will take up the slack. People without computers and Internet connections will slowly be marginalized.
Thanks for your reporting!
off-topic etomology
Would someone please correct me if necessary? I always thought that the expression was “toe the line,” as in a line on the ground, which one puts one’s toes on right after the drill sargeant bites your head off. It seems to have morphed, like duck/duct tape, into an apparently naval expression, as in a “tow line.” In which case, one wouldn’t be towing the line, but using the line to tow something else, like a dinghy. As in, “towing the dinghy,” which makes more sense than “towing the line” — in contrast, “toeing the line” always made more sense to me, and I thought was correct — so to speak.
I’ve always used “toe”, and assumed uses of “tow” to be incorrect.
For what it’s worth, google returns this:
http://www.grammartips.homestead.com/toetheline.html
Tough Crowd.
Permit me to have a little fun here (actually neweyes you are probably correct I missed it. Here are some quick links I found. here and here)
So - if I’m the D&C editorial board - I say - Well neweyes, it was really a vague reference/pun to refer to one falling in line - “being towed” like pulled along - like sting of packet boats on the Erie canal - or being led like sheep, through a chicken coop where egg gets on the D&C Ed board’s face.
Neweyes simply says (as does everyone else reading this) WTF which means, because we would not want to contribute to a coursening of the culture, “What the gosh darn”.
Now it is time to blame Bill Gates and spell check (the mind reading function in spell check is disabled).
If that doesn’t work I find a way to shoot the messenger (sorry neweyes the comments section isn’t big enough for both of us) .
All the while hoping this comment scrolls off the page into the same obvilion as the D&C article archives.
Which of course is one of the differences between the MSM and Blogs - Blogs are living breathing interactice experience. Newspapers - well they are printed on dead trees.
Itchy -
ah, silly me. In my anxiety over and preoccupation with the drill sergeant I missed the track and field context altogether, which makes even more sense, while still being entirely in the spirit of the usage, as your googled reference puts it: not straying beyond or across “a rigidly defined boundary.” ehhhhhxcellent.
and by the way, stlo7, it was a wonderfully mixed pair of metaphors, correct or not: “towing the line as they wipe the egg off their face.” Kudos. As I always say, don’t beat a dead horse in the middle of a stream.
“don’t beat a dead horse in the middle of a stream†— Neweyes, you sound suspiciously like Tom Tobin…
I got a little sick of the he blogged she blogged did not did too…
Just to be perfectly clear, this is a scan of what was printed in the dead-tree newspaper. Click for the full article.
Thanks itchy….
Like the title of the the post says…
The D&C editorial board wilts under the Truth.
You know what part I like?
NOT IN JEST
That part.
And the citation for this scanned portion of the D&C is … ??
This was the Friday Morning paper D&C. August 10, 2007