“You're not the media!” is a compliment

Two polls today. No waiting

The National Press Club gave Jim VandeHei, a founder of Politico and then Axios, a lifetime achievement award. He’s 53. That indicates a pretty short lifespan for him. Maybe a mobster put out a contract on him.

VandeHei’s acceptance speech was a profanity-laced rant against Elon Musk. The highlight was, “Everything we do is under fire. Elon Musk sits on Twitter every day or X today saying like, ‘We are the media. You are the media.’ My message to Elon Musk is bullsh*t! You’re not the media!”

Such is the state of the news media that one of the nation’s top journalist looking back at his 30-year career can only unleash an angry tirade against Musk. VanderHei didn’t reflect on his own accomplishments. He just seethed.

His fellow journalists in the press box cheered. Mediaite reported:

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough raised eyebrows in the studio by cursing out influencers in the social media “gutter” who are incentivized to lie to readers at “no cost” in a passionate defense of journalism at traditional media outlets.

The MSNBC team welcomed Axios Jim VandeHei into the studio Monday morning to congratulate him on receiving the Fourth Estate award alongside his publication’s co-founder Mike Allen. The focus, however, quickly rounded on a speech he delivered to the National Press Club, which praised fearless and impartial journalism and the importance of a free press while slamming opinionated influencers who are “popping off on Twitter.”

Incentivized to lie? That describes Morning Joe and his network to a T. Has anyone apologized for the Russiagate lie that tried to thwart Trump’s first term? Has anyone been fired? Has anyone gone to jail?

But how dare we criticize the press! Those little flying monkeys work so hard to achieve so little. They could not get Hillary elected and she spent a billion bucks on her campaign. They could not get Kamala elected and she spent a billion-and-a-half bucks on her campaign.

These lousy liars told us Trump had stolen classified material and given Putin our nuclear codes. He wanted to start World War 3 they exclaimed.

Well, FJB is doing that right now and the media is silent.

The other side of the story — yes, there are two sides; imagine that — comes from Tucker Carlson, who said, “The people who work at NBC News will not have careers in journalism 10 years from now. And the reason they won’t is not because of the technology. It’s because they have no credibility.”

They are lapdogs of the intelligence community and the FBI. No one in the press was bothered by the raid on Mar-a-Lago. No one. In fact, the media promoted a Democrat president prosecuting a Republican president on specious charges.

We the people said, “enough,” and re-elected Donald Trump as president.

Jack Smith just dropped charges in that case. Is malicious prosecution a felony? I hope so, because the Jack S deserves a few years in prison over this.

The lights are dimming for the media. VanderHei rants on. As Dylan Thomas wrote, “Do not go gentle into that good night. Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Musk is not the media!

I agree. That’s his strength. People trust him, not the media because Musk is not a petty little man who believes that if he tells a lie often enough it becomes the truth.

Musk is not a trifling sycophant of the rich and powerful in Washington pretending to be a rebel. Musk is not embracing every kooky lefty idea — for example, trannies are real women — that comes along. Musk is not trying to mislead the masses into a dystopian world where you will own nothing and be happy.

Because of that refusal to be part of the media, he has become America’s second favorite billionaire, after Trump of course.

Trump supporters over the weekend mused about Elon Musk buying MSNBC and turning it into a news network. But he already owns it. He owns all the media in America and he got it for a mere $44 billion when he bought Twitter. He fact-checks the fact-checkers.

$44 billion sounds like a lot of money to me and you, sure. But it is less than 15% of his net worth as measured by money. Twitter could drop dead tomorrow and he would still be worth $290 billion.

At 53, the same age as VanderHei, Musk already has helped create Paypal, built the world’s highest valued car company, launched 6,000 satellites and sired a dozen children. His lifetime has just begun. He’ll be colonizing Mars in a few years. Most of his achievements are yet to come.

How quickly things have changed.

6 years ago, on May 2, 2018, Jennifer Peters wrote:

Last week we discussed how journalists can use Twitter to engage with readers and share their stories. But, individuals aren’t the only ones who need to be on social media. News organizations, too, need to master social media to keep up with their audience and remain a part of readers’ lives. According to Pew Research Center, approximately 67% of American adults get at least some of their news from social media, while 74% of Twitter users report using the platform to get news updates. So if you want your news to be what people are looking at, you need to find them where they are. That means, yes, tweeting.

What do readers want from a news outlet’s Twitter account? They want the news, of course, but they also want engagement. If your newsroom has a savvy social media director, you’re probably already on the right track, but for smaller newsrooms that don’t have someone dedicated solely to handling their Twitter accounts, we’ve compiled some tips to help you make the most of your Twitter timeline and make sure your audience never clicks “unfollow.”

Vox also was once a defender of Twitter:

Twitter has revolutionized the newsroom as well, speeding up an already complicated new gathering process. What used to slowly crawl in over the wire, now comes over in real time, tweet after tweet. The modern day journalist mustn’t rest his eyes for a moment for fear of missing vital information.

However, the 24 hours news cycle may provide a unique value to journalists. Crowd-sourcing has become a technique many are using to compile details on a story. Twitter provides real time information, reactions, and public opinion during breaking stories. Some studies suggest that today, journalists use Twitter for up to 80% of their news-gathering techniques.

The media sued President Trump to keep him from blocking people in Twitter — and won.

Then, after claiming his tweets were so important to democracy, the media laughed and laughed when Twitter banned him for life.

On October 26, 2021, Perry Bacon Jr., a columnist aboard Jeff Bezos’s dinghy (which cost him half what a yacht cost) Washington Post wrote, “How Twitter became the media of America’s left.”

He wrote:

What has become more clear is that in some ways Twitter isn’t just a media platform for those on the political left, but the media platform for the most progressive Democrats. Plenty of very progressive people consume The Post, the Times, NPR and other mainstream publications. But Twitter is often the place they first look for news each day.

That’s in part because it’s a great way to get information that isn’t biased toward that centrist, pro-status-quo perspective. I have worked most of my life at very established, traditional institutions (Time magazine, NBC News, now The Post). Twitter has allowed me to build a national network of people with more left-wing and non-traditional interests and perspectives who weren’t likely to be hired or fit into a traditional news organization.

Bacon and therefore, Bezos, cheered Twitter, with Bacon writing, “It will always be hard for a Bernie Sanders to defeat a Joe Biden if older Democrats mostly get news more oriented toward Biden’s point of view. To truly compete, the left needs more broadcast and traditional-style news media to reach those older Democrats. But it’s also hard to imagine a truly left-wing media outlet ever being as big and influential as NPR or The Post or the Times. There are a lot of reasons for that, but one of them is that the real audience for a left-wing news outlet — younger Democrats — already has Twitter.”

But then Musk bought it and instead of being “a great way to get information,” Twitter is bullshit according to Official Washington. NYT ran a story telling people how to switch to Bluesky, a down-market Twitter. I hear it is up to a whole 1 million twits now.

DC fears the truth, which is kryptonite to their power.

After the election, VanderHei and Mike Allen wrote in their Axios:

The 78-year-old Trump and 53-year-old Musk might seem like an odd couple at first blush. But, they have striking similarities, according to Republicans close to both men.

Both have insatiable ambition and have been huge risk-takers.

Both understand the power — and tricks — of social media.

Both had tough, dominating dads.

Both are rich and have their tentacles in numerous businesses.

Both revel in stirring the pot — and spreading fact and fiction at scale.

Both lack the empathy that holds others back.

Both believe the country and government need a massive shock to be saved.

Both view themselves as immune to rules and norms that hold other people back.

What to watch: The joke among some Trump officials is that neither man enjoys sharing the stage or power or acclaim — so the bromance could easily go sideways.

They fear giving power to men who have been successful in life.

They trust only a low-IQ crook like FJB or a lower-IQ rummy like Kamala, who couldn’t get a job at McDonald’s, because dummies make the best puppets.

Twitter was once a safe space for guys like VanderHei who could use it to serve the masses cow waste stories like Russiagate or to urinate on a real scandal like Hunter’s laptop. Musk came along and made Twitter credible again.

There is hope. Matt Gaetz pushed back against The View and forced them to clarify that no charges were ever brought against him. Others followed. Zero Hedge reported, “The View Hosts Forced To Read Four Legal Notes On Friday For Lying, And It Was Glorious.”

Talk trash, eat crow, ladies.

What really ticks off the media is that you can now use Twitter to tell them to learn to code when they are laid off.

And the layoffs have only just begun. Media audiences are shrinking faster than George Costanza’s manhood in a cold pool.

Couldn’t happen to a more deserving people. FJB was the hill they chose to die on. That is their life achievement. We’re not the media? Thank heavens.

Two polls today as the cat begins her annual drive for Christmas Catnip.