Capitol Hill Blue Bites Back
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Sunday April 16th 2006, 6:57 pm
Kurt Nimmo
Another Day in the Empire
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Teresa Hampton, editor of Capitol Hill Blue, has responded to my criticism of Doug Thompson for his characterization of people interested in nine eleven truth as fools, lemmings, scam artists, and other not so nice names (a link to this article no longer exists). Ms. Hampton seems to believe I am lining my pockets here via Pay Pal donation button (less obtrusive than numerous flashing banner ads courtesy of multinational corporations) while Thompson gives ad money to charity. I am roundly chastised for not reading the Capitol Hill Blue FAQ on such things. Ms. Hampton calls this shoddy journalism, or a "mouth" with a "modem."
It is interesting to note Ms. Hampton did not touch nine eleven with a ten foot pole. Instead she picked on insignificant details such as the purported anti-Semitism of a website going by the name HaloScan.com and the oopsy of Doug Herman getting a fact wrong about an Oscar and Charlie Sheen. She also considers scant few of us out here journalists-and considering the state of journalism these days, I shall take this as a compliment.
If Doug Thompson is a journalist, he is a journalist refusing to do sufficient research on the inconsistencies laced throughout the nine eleven fable. I find this lack of research far more egregious than my lack of foresight in checking the Capitol Hill Blue FAQ before posting. I am still irked and take personally the fact Thompson believes we are exploiting the dead of nine eleven. On the other hand, I can live with the idea I am considered a nut case-not a day passes I don't think all of us here in America are nut cases for accepting what the government does in our names.
Ms. Hampton, I'd like to know, now that Doug Thompson has admitted he went overboard, calling people cretins and scam artists (the column now removed, please excuse my poor journalistic research, I can't provide an exact quote), will he also reconsider his belief in the Grimm Brothers story known as the Keane-Hamilton whitewash commission report? Or does he stand by his statements and simply regret using strong language to describe those of us who demand the truth.
"It takes more than a modem and a mouth to be a journalist," Hampton concludes. "Research also requires more than running a quick Google search. It requires training and hard work, two items we find lacking in those who claim to know more than us about our chosen profession."
In other words, I am not a journalist because I don't have the "training," that is to say I didn't go to college and earn a degree, and then didn't work my way through a series of newsrooms, as Mr. Thompson did. Not doing such simply makes one a "mouth."
Moreover, I detect a bit of anti-blogger sentiment here-it really is getting tedious, reading "professional" journos dissing bloggers. I am tuned-in to the argument-the bloggers don't have the training or expertise to report or even comment on the news, they make too many mistakes, are shoddy, rely on questionable sources-sort of like Judith Miller of the New York Times.
A few months ago, I heard basically the same thing from a neocon, a Princeton grad now teaching economics in Israel and California. In addition to calling me illiterate, he basically said without an "education" (my daddy was too poor to send me to Princeton) my opinion was about as worthy as a pile of dirt, or likewise colored substance. I admit a high school diploma and a lifetime (at the ripe old age of 53) of factory work, culminating in a decent wage in the late 90s as a web designer in Alan Greenspan's dot-com bubble. It was short-lived and here I am, back where I began.
It's not all journos out here, Ms. Hampton. Some of us are normal people, sans fancy diplomas, and our opinions are as valid as a guy who has a degree, worked in a bevy of news departments, founded one of the web's first news sites, and now appears ready to throw in the towel following the receipt of one of those "national security" letters.
Excuse my mistake of not checking the CHB FAQ. However, I still want to know if Mr. Thompson believes we're scoundrels and ninnies for believing the nine eleven whitewash commission story with its hole you could fly a Boeing 747 through, pun intended.
In the meantime, while I wait, probably for hell to freeze over, I will take the meager donations I receive, pay for the server space and maybe a new computer, if I save for another year or so. I explained this to my readers, a few thousand a day-I remain a small fish in a big "journo" pond-and most of them don't seem to have a problem with it. Most of them choose to ignore the button. No obligation. No problem. I do this for pennies a day, far less than Mr. Thompson earned as a respectable journo at all those newspapers, regardless of the fact he now gives it all away to charity.
Of course, it's easier to ignore a little Pay Pal donation button than a big honking and flashing Cisco banner ad.
Read the original.
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