The self-anointed elite class of “real” journalists exposes the raw hostility and contempt it harbours for the very citizenry it purports to serve.
Sometimes you read something, somewhere, that causes many people to get angry. But the latest piece by the UK Guardian, Andrew Marr unloads on citizen bloggers, calling them “inadequate, pimpled, very drunk, angry and single,” just made my day. They are collapsing faster than I ever imagined.
Chumps like Marr are furious because nobody really takes them seriously anymore. Bloggers and free speech are ruining everything, and so he lashes out. Call it Marr’s controlled, yet expressive tantrum.
Enlightened journalists say they are in favour of progress, but progress is precisely what is killing them. They do not know how to deal with it. The growing sense of irrelevance is really tough on them.
The first reaction of course is to lash out emotionally. This is what Andrew Marr of the BBC has done. The Guardian writes:
The BBC‘s website has nearly 100 blogs and invites its readers to “have your say” on an enormous range of topics, from Westminster to the weather.
But one of the corporation’s most familiar faces, Andrew Marr, has dismissed bloggers as “inadequate, pimpled and single”, and citizen journalism as the “spewings and rantings of very drunk people late at night”.
Quoting Marr, who incidently is hired by the publicly-funded BBC, and whose obligation is to inform the public, cannot contain the utter contempt he harbours for his audience. The Guardian quotes Marr:
‘A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed young men sitting in their mother’s basements and ranting. They are very angry people. OK – the country is full of very angry people. Many of us are angry people at times. Some of us are angry and drunk’.
You really need to read the whole Guardian piece. I guarantee you’ll be entertained by the frustration these malcontents are feeling. You’ll quickly understand why they fantasize of detonators with red buttons, and why they think exploding children are “kind of funny”.
Well, I really think it’s funny that they are emotionally exploding. And yet it is indeed extremely sad to watch these once reputable journalistic institutions fall so far. But it’s by their own doing.
The citizens’ view of “mainstream” journalism
Allow me to use Marr’s own comments and change them to tell you what we as citizens feel about the established media. I think many will agree. Here’s how I’d put it:
Many of society’s common readers have dismissed ‘mainstream’ journalism as inadequate, hypocritical and condescending, and mainstream journalism as the “spewings and rantings of arrogant, narrow-minded, dogmatic, and frustrated people – day and night.
A lot of mainstream journalists seem to be isolated from the mainstream public, dressed in fancy clothes, arrogant, quite seedy, toupè-wearing, high-nosed grumps sitting in their newsrooms and ranting about how atupid their readers are. They are very angry, frustrated people. OK – the country is full of very frustrated people. Many of us are frustrated people at times. Some of us are really angry and frustrated, and we dream of red-buttoned detonators.
So-called mainstream journalism is the spewings of contempt for the working classes, from very arrogant hypocrites sitting in ivory towers that are funded by the taxpayers. Take Andrew Marr as an example.
It is fantastic at times but it is no longer the future of journalism.
Most of journalism is simply too condescending and too arrogant. Much disinformation is printed because they cannot cope with inconvenient truths. Mainstream journalists fantasize of explosive horror clips, about things that they’d love to do to their uncooperative readers.
The former readers of mainstream journalism, like many in the blogosphere, have previously criticised the tone and the quality of journalism, saying we have stopped reading most mainstream journalism like the BBC. It’s out of touch with its original purpose, and the citizens it is supposed to serve, and not insult.‘It’s a waste of my time,’ say the average citizens, adding that mainstream journalism is most often written by people who think they ought to tell the rest of us how to think, that citizens are too stupid to do so on their own, and think it’s okay to abuse and insult them, just as Andrew Marr does.
But in the end, we “drunk and pimpled” citizens do not need to fantasize about red buttons and blowing up “real” journalists. The “real” journalists are pressing their own self-destruct red buttons all by themselves.
Marr’s comments reflect a fear not only of new technologies, but also of the erosion of privileges they encourage: http://bit.ly/bkYMd2
Readers who commented here:
I screwed up the title of this post (Andrew Marr, and not William Marr), and so I reposted it, and then deleted the original. Unfortunately the comments were deleted along with it too – very sorry about that.
I’ll post it again 😉
Spot on!
When news(wo)men report the news they are doing the minimum that their job requires. When they investigate they reach their peak. When they opine they are just like the rest of us except they feel they are entitled to more respect. However, every survey on the subject I’ve ever seen, puts the status of reporters in the same ball park as that of politicians and estate agents. Ouch!
Since I am more than capable of extracting the news from the news agencies, Reuters, AP, Tass and even Xinhua, I don’t need journalists to rewrite it (if they bother) with their own spin added. On the spot news reporting, complete with pictures is now being dominated by citizen bloggers and tweeters and think how CO2 efficient they are! When it comes to opinion, I value those who state their position clearly, rather than hide under a false flag of neutrality.
That only leaves investigative journalism but the MSM approach to global warming proves they’re too lazy, too stupid or too biased to investigate any of today’s complex issues.
Sorry journos, your days are numbered, don’t let the blogosphere hit you on the back on your way out.