August 7, 2013

Most Embarrassing Sentence in Major Media, 2013.

And the first nominee is:
But hanging in the air was an electrifying sense of being in the presence of an ascendant politician they believed understood the potential of the new digital world they were shaping.

21 comments:

AaronS said...

Bonus points for being about a meeting from 2009.

Ann Althouse said...

Yes, consider the context, which is,it seems, graft. The NYT would blind us with absurd admiration.

Carl said...

Ooo, adoxographic bukkake. Gives a whole new overtone to the idea of ink-stained wretches.

Patrick said...

I very much doubt that the writer is embarrassed at all by this sentence. Anyone who could even come up with such a notion is probably proud of it.

I don't know why this required three writers. One suspects that these are the types to go to Davos and fawn over all of the celebrities wearing glasses to appear intelligent.

mccullough said...

The first paragraph of this story should be that Booker refuses to answer what percent of this company he owns and how he financed his purchase of stock, if at all. It looks like a way to funnel money to him from wealthy tech gurus whose water he will be carrying if elected to the Senate. The fact that the teenage son of the head of CNN is on the advisory board of this Potemkin company is just icing on the cake. The military-industrial complex has nothing on the the tech-media-Washington politician complex.

AaronS said...

Indeed. The article is full of generic "can you believe how these politicians operate nowadays" sentiment while simultaneously specifically adoring Booker.
I will say this, apparently Booker did understand the potential. Not too sure that Silicon Valley understands the potential of politicians, though.

Bob Boyd said...

For a second there I thought it was gonna be Weiner.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I wonder how the Times would have written that story, if the wealthy entrepreneur's name had been Koch and the politician a white republican.

I just got an idea.

Henry said...

Loudon Wainwright has a wonderful birthday song for Bob Dylan: Talking New Bob Dylan.

Yeah, I got a deal and so did John Prine
Steve Forbert and Springsteen, all in a line
They were lookin' for you, signin' up others
We were new Bob Dylans, your dumb ass kid brothers


I was wondering, if the NYT is going to genuflect, why Cory Booker? And I thought of Loudon's song and realized that what the Major Media wants is new Obamas.

The Major Media reports politics the way A&R flacks write music.

Henry said...

From the article: The company has a goal: making it easy to “collect, curate and share” videos from across the Web.

There's the horns of the dilemma. Either he goes porn or goes bankrupt. Going bankrupt is the politically wise choice.

But much about its operations and Mr. Booker’s role as chairman appears ill defined.

You don't say.

“Curation is the next big thing to happen to video,” said James L. McQuivey of Forrester Research.

That was the Yahoo model for web site categorization, fifteen years ago. Before Google.

mikesixes said...

Incredible. Here's a story about a politician being given something worth millions of dollars, in exchange for...what?
These things used to be done in secret, but now we're evidently supposed to be impressed that these techno-plutocrats think enough of Mr. Booker to want to own him. What's really sad is that a lot of people will consider this cheesy bribe to be an impressive endorsement.

gadfly said...

Wow, a social network site (that no one has ever heard of) gets 2200 hits per month and is worth millions of dollars!

So how is it that the Althouse website with some astronomical hit counts requires its authoress to work two jobs?

Realistically, we are likely talking here about the prestidigitation of Booker Tease and the Envies.

ddh said...

The story's a fine example of the MSM's inability to recognize corruption in a Democrat, even when the evidence sits in plain view, because journalists view their role as singing the praises of Democrats. The sentence that Prof. Althouse selected is only one verse of this song of praise--the preposterous notion that a politician understands the digital world to come or even that a company that invites a politician to play a major role in management understands the digital world to come.

"I feel smitten,
Oh, so smitten,
I feel smitten and giddy and light!
And I pity
Any guy who isn't he tonight."

tim maguire said...

Using that many words to say so little earns some kind of award. I'm encouraged by the comments. Most people are seeing through the bullshit just fine.

I wonder if the writer is shocked that his razzle failed to dazzle.

Tank said...

Cory Booker.

Bought and paid for.

Another slimy POS.

Any of those "cool" people ever been to his Newark to check out the great job he's doing?

chuckR said...

Bulwer-Lytton we much?

RAS743 said...

Embarrassing to whom? Surely not the reporters themselves. They're safely ensconced in their own comfortable bubble, where all assertions of the left are embraced as -- if you'll pardon the expression -- holy writ, and their "reporting" is taken as such. Why should they care if critics, skeptics, Kool-Aid abstainers, think they're self-regarding fools in service of an ideology that is completely discredited by current political and financial realities. They bear the title of "reporter" but are nothing more than political functionaries, apparatchiks. It's all about their herd and what the herd thinks is best for the rest of us. They'll be thinking this right up to the moment that every one of them is out of a job. You completely misjudge people of their ilk. *They know better.* Got it?

RAS743 said...
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Anonymous said...

You mean like Rhode Island bet on Curt Schilling?

Up at the unicorn's animatronic head, many journos, the LGBT crowd, white guilt pilgrims straggling in, academic types and gentry liberals gather for the hourly shows. There's a kid's show, too; great food, sunshine and a freshly mowed lawn.

Wait, are those some union guys over there? They look like thugs. Are those kids getting high? I hope I locked the car. This guy's drunk or on crack or something. Where are the kids? Who's paying for all this?

A few people walk around to the unicorn's body, lift up the great white tarp and peer inside.

Why it's all just machine politics under here! Flop sweat and cigar smoke, backroom dealers and bookies gathered around a pile of money!

RAS743 said...
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Jim S. said...

I think if you're looking for the most embarrassing quote in major media, you can do no better than this description of Huma Abedin that Instapundit draws attention to:

"She wore bright-red lipstick, which gave her lips a 3-D look, her brown eyes were pools of empathy evolved through a thousand generations of what was good and decent in the history of the human race."

Links: http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/173097/
http://nymag.com/news/features/anthony-weiner-2013-7/index5.html