Real Millionaire Crybabies Of The Airwaves

[babylonsister]

Real Millionaire Crybabies Of The Airwaves

by digby


Greenwald reports that John Roberts and Kyra Phillips had a little hissy fit about anonymous "cowards" on the internet, who presumably should be jailed or fined for saying mean things about them:

CNN's Kyra Phillips and John Roberts spent a good five minutes yesterday expressing serious concern over what they called "the dark side" of the Internet: the plague of "anonymous bloggers" who are "a bunch of cowards" for not putting their names on what they say, and who use this anonymity to spread "conspiracy," "lunacy," "extremism" and false accusations (video below). The segment included excerpts from an interview with Andrew Keene, author of Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing our Culture, who explained that the Real Media must serve as "gatekeepers" to safeguard the public against the dangers of anonymity on the Internet. Roberts demanded that bloggers should "have the courage at the very least to put your name on it," while Phillips announced: "something is going to have to be done legally. . . . these people have to be held accountable, they're a bunch of cowards."

As Greenwald points out, these same journalists who are so upset about anonymity are the same people who commonly use anonymous sources in their reporting. Evidently anonymity is perfectly fine when it's inside the club.

Everyone knows Roberts and Phillips are engaged right? So this conversation presumably reflects something they've both spent some time together ruminating about together on the golf course. Fine, they have a perfect right to be upset about the mean things people say about them. What's insidious is the fact that they want to "do something about it." Think about that. These two people are supposed to be journalists. They aren't government officials or powerful corporate titans who one might assume to be interested in suppressing free speech. These are members of the press advocating censorship and punishment for anonymous speech.

more...

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/real-millionaire-crybies-of-airwaves-it.html

[monmouth]

1. These two plus Blitzer are among the many reasons I just can't

watch CNN. When Ted Turner owned CNN it was the ONLY place for news, sadly no more. Now, if some genius over there were to hire David Shuster to take over, say Wolfie's spot, well that would be a different story..I can dream...

[babylonsister]

3. I can't watch them either; add a bunch of other faux reporters

to the list, too. Cooper, for starters.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8804404

Anderson Cooper Gives Breitbart Cover by Painting the Left With the Right's Insane Brush

[valerief]

2. Centrist Nationalist News. nt

[Orsino]

4. Roberts has no business lecturing on the subject of courage...

...and Phillips' quote shows her equally bankrupt.

[Fuzz]

5. Pretty faces reading off a tele-prompter. STFU

[ck4829]

6. K&R

[Overseas]

7. K&R. Great point about them using anonymous sources with no problem.

Yet pseudonymous articles on the internet are somehow not acceptable.