Man bites lap dogs!
Vanity Fair critic and new blogger James Wolcott sinks his fangs into the plush hindquarters of Fox, CNN and the media elite.
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By Kerry Lauerman
Sept. 28, 2004 | The blogs terrorizing Dan Rather and CBS the past couple of weeks represent only a small part of the Internet media devoted to criticizing other media, particularly TV and print journalists. Whether they realize it or not, many of these armchair mediaphiles have been heavily influenced by James Wolcott, whose cultural criticism appeared in the New Yorker, Harper's and Esquire before settling in Vanity Fair, where he is the culture critic. Well before all that, he had a memorable stint as TV critic for the Village Voice.
Wolcott's cultural observations and deft vivisections are on fine display in his new book, "Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants," in which he identifies the insidious form of agenda-driven conservative pundit that increasingly dominates the news business, mapping out their yapping universe. Nobody gets a pass; even seemingly minor players like Fox News contributor/columnist Cal Thomas, who "raised a dyed eyebrow at Howard Dean, a Congregationalist, for having a Jewish wife," suffer from a sharp, swift yank of the leash.
Now Wolcott has joined the online masses, launching his own blog last month, which he updates daily on a range of topics, from "America's Next Top Model" to the Republican Convention and CNN's chronic inability to prove that Wolf Blitzer is real. ("After months of being buffeted by accusations and speculation, CNN subjected Blitzer to a series of forensic tests over the weekend and determined that his beard is a polyfiber synthetic and his lack of affect was attributable to a defective chip insecurely fitted into his fliptop head.")
Article:
http://www.salon.com/books/int/2004/09/28/wolcott/Blog:
http://www.jameswolcott.com/
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