Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Friday, June 26, 2009

Tabloid Journalism or a Tabloid Population?

Commentary By Ron Beasley


The US and the World face a number of real and potential problems.  In case you forgot the US is supposed to be leaving the cities in Iraq in spite of an uptick in violence.  Things are not getting any better in Afghanistan either,  The US and World economies are still teetering on the edge of a depression.  But the entire media is once again morphed into the National Enquirer.  The tabloid journalism revolved around  another oversexed hypocritical Republican, Mark Sanford, until the death of Michael Jackson.  My initial reaction would be to criticize the media but that would be wrong I think.  The profit and viewer driven media is giving the the tabloid population what they want - news that looks like a reality show.  When our civilization finally collapses it won't be the result of the tabloid journalism but because tabloid journalism is what the people wanted.


So I've been quiet this week because I don't give a rat's ass about Mark Sanford or Michael Jackson.



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3 comments:

  1. Bill HJune 26, 2009 at 7:28 PM

    And I've been catching up on my reading (fiction) for the same reason. I do have to say that I find it disturbing that, no matter what he did before, this nation so idolizes a self-indulgent, self-idolizing, androgynous, drug addicticted, pedophile freak.

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  2. TonyJune 26, 2009 at 11:57 PM

    It's a fair point. It's no coincidence that the tabloids are the highest sellers and most consumed media. The proprietors are like the old alchemists turning dross
    into gold(for themselves). It's the public who let them do it.

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  3. One FlyJune 27, 2009 at 1:17 AM

    I have to disagree. The people may want this and the media should and does cover it. In my opinion the media has a responsibility to truthfully cover stories that affect our nation. Neither position is wrong.

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