Category: <span>Mainstream Media</span>

I get the paper (4 days a week) but I don’t check it first thing. So I was shocked when my friend Bruce told me he cancelled the Los Angeles Times today. He’s one of only a couple of friends who still get the paper! Oh, no! We can’t exchange complaints and info!

I asked him why, and he said “Johnny Depp is on the front page.”

“I don’t understand. I don’t like him either, but…”

“No, his face was all over the front page. They did this once before, and it just makes the paper look so trashy.”

johnny depp on LA TimesI had no idea what he meant, but I wanted to tell him about a trashy editor of a woman’s magazine who had been so rude to me today, so we changed the topic.

Now I just heard John and Ken on KFI talking about the same thing! I ran to get the paper out of the plastic bag, and, um, it does look pretty bad. It’s a fake front page, with a hideous photo of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter in the new release of Alice in Wonderland. (Does Johnny Depp have a big space between his teeth? Euwww. His hair is wild orange like Carrot Top.)

The photo and the ad, all in color,  covers the entire front page, except for a few paragraphs on either side and the top pretend masthead. It really looks like the front page – they call it a cover-wrap.

Unattractive, but this is an industry town. I’m not offended.

Oh My Gah, I just saw that the NY Times reported on this!

Entertainment Mainstream Media

It’s come to my attention that some people don’t think the same way I do! Astonishing!

For instance, one thing that I’m extremely passionate about is privacy. For others, as well as myself. And couthness. Uncouth is not cool. This includes making fun of others’ sex lives, or asking them about it directly. So rude! (However, a little bit of gossip is okay among friends, in hushed tones.)

john edwards book was not written with love and compassion

I saw Andrew Young and his wife on 20/20, talking about this book he had written about the years he worked with John Edwards, The Politician: An Insider’s Account of John Edwards’s Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal That Brought Him Down. Oh, and about a dirty sex tape he found of Edwards. Nice. Young has written a tell-all as he rolls out all the dirty secrets of John Edwards and his mistress. Only this is a revenge- book, and as the Youngs described how pious they are, the whole thing stank, so I did this cartoon shortly after the show. I think I’m the only cartoonist on Slate or cagle.com who did one on this topic. I don’t know why! I know it’s not hard news, but it’s still important, and very sad, when a politician gets outed by his former best friend.

Mainstream Media Politicians who aren't Obama

One of the sites that I never go to -oh, perhaps once every couple months, if I must – is Huffington Post. Or as I call it, PuffPost. I remember when it started – Arianna Huffington had parties out here, got bloggers together. But it was super-liberal, so I never paid much attention to it.

All they do is rewrite real journalists, or use the news verbatim published elsewhere, and slap a provocative (and usually misleading) title on it. Now PuffPo has gone local, with a Los Angeles subsection. Watch out, LA Times, for plagiarism and attribution without links.

But the part I take personally is that they don’t pay anyone!! They are the biggest blog in the country now, if not the world, run by one of the richest women. Check out this article in the LA Times. Arianna Huffington is quoted:

Huffington said ads will run on the site, and the Huffington Post and Causecast will split the ad revenue. Any money donated to any cause goes directly to the cause, with nothing coming out of it.

Her site continues to expand, reinvesting its proceeds in the product. “We’ve had a very, very good advertising year,” she said. “We would be in the black if we were not expanding. Whether you are profitable or not depends whether you’re standing still or expanding. This is a window we need to take advantage of.”

The article is about how the PuffPost is adding a bunch of news about causes, called Impact, because they’re so liberal and they want to help. Well, wanting to help is a good thing. Yet…her own writers and worker bees get NOTHING, NO MONEY, in their best year yet!  Yet she wants them to donate from their non-existent wages. This doesn’t sound liberal to me, it sounds like a medieval caste system. Ugh, PuffPo is pathetic.

huffington post cartoon

It’s been a cliche for a few years now – everyone online loves to write how they never read a real newspaper anymore. Like this is something rare, unusual, and quite cool. They have Twitter, all the news websites, social media, etc, and newspapers are dead. Um, yeah, right.

Mainstream Media Not that High Tech

Glenn Beck cartoon

It’s talk radio. Grow up and get over it. I love talk radio, although I don’t have much time to listen to it. My all time fave is the great Phil Hendrie! I like Adam Carolla in small doses, when he doesn’t get gross.

I’ve never heard Glenn Beck, so I don’t know his schtick, but I know censorship when I hear it. Phooey on this boycott.

I believe “r-a-c-i-s-t” is  used by minorities against whites 98% of the time. It’s my belief that that is the worst thing you can call someone in America today, other than murderer.

I don’t think that word should be used at all. But that being said,  I think we should even it out. More white people should call minorities r-a-c-i-s-t. Because why should it be a one way street?

Freedom Cartoons Mainstream Media

Barack Obama Mainstream Media

Mark Sanford cartoon with TMZ
TMZ broke the big story of Michael Jackson's death, but why skim over Senator mark Sanford's affair? We'll let the Democrats dig up the dirt on this one. All rights reserved ©D.Barstow

I like reporting on the media. But how many mirrors does the world really need? I don’t care, I find it fascinating to reflect on what newspeople think is news, and how they report it.

If fate is right, that means eventually someone will report on me reporting on the media reporting on the news – perhaps one of those hate liberal blogs.

I remember watching the TMZ head honcho, Harvey Levin, back when he reported on the OJ trial. He was a good reporter/lawyer. I don’t know how or when he turned to sleaze and  getting crap about celebrities, but I guess he’s a staple on Hollywood news now. I never go to the blog – too much vulgarity -but I’ve seen the TV show in passing, which spends a lot of time on a goodlooking blond photographer, who I just found in passing, from this blog, is called Max Hodges. 

Entertainment Mainstream Media Scandalous cartoons!