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.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Cable Tabloid News

Commentary By Ron Beasley


We can all be relieved that Irene was not as bad as it could have been but it was still bad.  Now there are attacks on the coverage of Irene.  Howard Kurtz chimed in: A Hurricane Of Hype.  But was it really?  I think not.  It was very close to Armageddon for NYC.  Did the governor of NJ over react or the mayor of NYC?  No - plan for the worst and hope the best.  But Kutrtz is talking about the media coverage.  His criticism is sadly absurd - hype is what the media is all about.  Did a storm that impacted millions receive anymore attention than the missing blond woman de jour?  The answer is no.  That's what 24 hour a day tablioid news is all about and that is the problem. 



Posted by at
Labels:

1 comment:

  1. TaylorAugust 29, 2011 at 5:12 AM

    The attacks on the Irene coverage miss the point. Irene is just the latest in a series of events that have completely occupied the televised media in this country. It should be very clear at this point that, despite having that big 24-hour news cycle to fill, TV news outlets are only capable of truly focusing on one thing at a time, usually something very short-term and unimportant - for example, a scandal or a catastrophe or a meaningless political gaffe.
    This nearsightedness or myopia of the TV media has already relegated them to being a superficial entertainment/journalism sideshow, whereas media outlets that offer products in other mediums - print and online - will be able to convey the deep, specific, local sort of news coverage that is actually useful to people.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)