forever and ever ahem

Posted by: kelly at July 20, 2006 01:26 AM

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Ouch. I hope Antonia doesn't have a sunburn cuz this slap would sting twice as much.

(actually, the Sado-masochistic side of me wishes she does)

Posted by: TrustOnlyMulder at July 20, 2006 06:14 AM

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Hardly damning stuff.

Warren Kinsella has down MyBlahg a great favor by denouncing it. I'm trying to get him to denounce my own blog, as I figure that's the path to fame and fortune.

Posted by: bigcitylib at July 20, 2006 08:47 AM

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Wow - the battle of the intellectual dinosaurs. Myblahg would have been a compelling read in 1920's Russia. Zerbisias' champagne socialist opinions mattered at the height of Trudeaumania. And Kinsella, well his vintage is the newest - Chretien circa early 90's. Up next - banter with that chart-topper himself - Vanilla Ice...

Posted by: at July 20, 2006 10:02 AM

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I'm no great fan of Ms. Zerbisias' work, but it's a stretch to claim from the evidence you cite that she uses Mr. McClelland's blog as a legitimate journalistic research source for her own columns. Yes, she linked to his Bin Laden image (a lame joke, at that), but the tone of that particular piece (as in many of her writings) is clearly light-hearted, and not intended as serious reportage. As for her 12-19-04 article, in which you claim that she admits to learning "from MyBlahg, so much so that she felt it needed to be called out for attention above and beyond all the blogs she has perused," you mistake "learning from" with "relying upon as source material." In that same article, she also cites five supposedly right-wing blogs "that deserve some attention." By your own logic, she must also learn from these blogs, and therefore must also use them as legitimate sources for her own writings.

Incidentally, Ms. Zerbisias' 11-07-04 and 12-19-04 articles are both available in the Toronto Star archives, though neither listed by author. They may be found by searching the archives using their respective print headings, "Blogs rolled ever onward in 2004" and "Bin Laden Sought Bush Victory." Google is a great resource, but hardly a comprehensive news archive. I am unfamiliar with the WayBackMachine.

Posted by: AK at July 20, 2006 10:30 AM

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I think the problem depends on how people define "research."

As a lawyer, Kinsella seems to define "researcher" as "information source," whereas Zerb defines "researcher" as "information gatherer." Since Blahgger Bob is occasionally quoted in Zerb's blogging columns (and, for that matter, she also quotes me, albeit far less often), he meets Kinsella's definition but not really Zerb's.

Incidentally, while I agree with Zerb that Blahgger Bob is "challenging," I don't necessarily see that as an endorsement. "Challenging" can also be a useful euphemism for "difficult" or "hard to accept," and that's about as much of an understatement of Blahgger Bob's prose as you can get.

Posted by: PhantomObserver at July 20, 2006 12:50 PM

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Nice try, Steve.

But, as others here have helpfully pointed out, a selective memory and use of "research."

It's damn difficult to ''recall'' what I DIDN'T WRITE. If you know how I can "recall" words I didn't use -- like ''researcher'' -- I would love to hear it from an expert ''researcher'' such as you.

So, in the interest of research, I will publish below, in separate comments, the full text of every column in which I mention McClelland or My Blahg, as it appears in the Star's data base.

Posted by: Antonia Z., at July 20, 2006 05:29 PM

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Steve,

this has got to be a candidate for the most mind numbingly dumb or intentionally dishonest post this year by a Canadian blogger.

You sound shocked that a media blogger columnist for a major paper actually reads other blogs and *gasp* mentions she learned something.

Does AZ or the STar owe Taranto or Brock or Penny any backpay for being "researchers" in your sad little logic here?

Posted by: Observer at July 20, 2006 05:30 PM

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ubdate:November 07, 2004 Page: D10 Section:A&E.Entertainment Edition:MET Length:990
Bin Laden sought Bush victory
Byline/Source: By Antonia Zerbisias Toronto Star
Photo Caption: Video image of Osama bin Laden delivering a warning to U.S. voters in the days prior to election day. [cascadeid]i6dzivz3[/cascadeid]

Remember him, the guy in the picture on the right ?
He has barely been mentioned since Tuesday when the U.S. media
began framing the election results around "morality" -
a genteel way of saying middle America hates homos - instead of
the fear factor that drove most of the campaign.
Behold Osama bin Laden, star of the most effective ad all year
for the Bush-Cheney ticket. It debuted two Fridays ago, on the
eve of the vote, in time to mute talk of the missing explosives
at Al Qaaqa and to wipe out coverage of the impending collapse of
the necessary overhaul of American intelligence agencies. Its
appearance could not have been better managed if George W's
chief political strategist, Karl Rove, had planned it.
As Vanity Fair's James Wolcott lamented on his blog
(jameswolcott.com) on the day after the election, "This was
the outcome (bin Laden) wanted, a gift from us to him: an
unapologetic Christian Crusader in the White House whose
re-election gives lie to the notion that Abu Ghraib was an
aberration and that the deaths of thousands of Iraqi civilians
weigh upon America's conscience. This morning America could
not look more like a grinning aggressor to the Arab world, an
aggressor with fresh marching orders."
Or, if you prefer the picture worth a thousand words version,
check one of my favourite Canadian sites at myblahg.blogspot.com.
There, blogger Robert McClelland has a Photoshopped screen grab
of bin Laden superimposed on the flight deck of USS Abraham
Lincoln with that infamous "Mission Accomplished"
banner behind him.
But of course.
Everything about that video indicated that the terrorist
mastermind has also mastered the media. They lined up to
broadcast his message as eagerly as any freeloading second-string
critic generates blurbs for third-rate Hollywood movies.
Leaving aside the obvious - the not-in-a-cave sound and
lighting, the fact that he was using a lectern instead of a
boulder, not to mention that he is very much alive - Bin Laden
used mental terrorism to ensure that Americans would vote to
bring back the poster child for his jihadist recruiting drive.
What's more, he showed us that, wherever he is, he is
plugged in.
For example, in the complete translated transcript - which was
available Monday, although it was not widely published in the
States - Bush is repeatedly denigrated. He is called a liar
"engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the
real causes" of 9/11, accused of having "shady"
connections to oil concerns, and mocked as a failed
commander-in-chief who ignored the warnings of impending attack
and who listened to a children's story when he should have
acted.
Bin Laden knew that making fun of Bush would goad the electorate
into supporting him - especially in a climate where it's a
virtue to be hated by the Europeans, the United Nations and
others who are not American.
Alan Rutkowski of Edmonton, in a letter to the Globe and Mail
published last Monday, said it best: "Clearly Osama bin
Laden wants Americans to think that he thinks they will think he
only wants them to think he is trying to get George Bush
re-elected so they will think that by voting for Mr. Bush they
will not have been taken in, but in reality, if they think that,
they will have been."
Bin Laden follows the U.S. media closely enough to know that the
Bushite spin machine would use his video against Democratic
contender John Kerry. So it did, right on cue. Instead of
focussing on how he was still not caught "dead or
alive" and how Iraq was a deadly diversion from stopping Al
Qaeda, many news outlets painted filmmaker Michael Moore as the
bad guy. That's because it was clear that Bin Laden was
aware that the pet goat scene from Fahrenheit 9/11 had resonance.

"I'm glad to know that Michael Moore is giving aid and
comfort to the enemy," snapped Danielle Pletka of the
right-wing American Enterprise Institute on CNN.
Then she went on, as did many of her ilk last weekend, to accuse
Kerry of exploiting the video for his political gain - as if he
hadn't long been emphasizing that Bin Laden was still out
there threatening Americans.
"This shifts the topic from Iraq where the challenger was
hitting the president hard for alleged mismanagement of the
war," opined MSNBC's Chris Matthews, as if he had
nothing to do with shifting the topic. "This creates a
terrible situation for the challenger because it seems to me that
Karl Rove has his finger on this. He knows that the American
people have only one president at a time. And that's George
W. Bush. We only have one protector at a time. We have to rally
behind the president when we're threatened by an enemy.
Osama bin Laden. And he's done it again."
Bin Laden's strategy is clear. It's all in the tape:
Bankrupt the U.S. as it fights the "war on terror" -
and strike the states that helped return Bush to power.
Why the media are not exploring all that is a mystery.
Maybe they wanted Bush to win. Or maybe they don't want to
lose the Florida tourism ads lined up for Christmas.

Posted by: Antonia Z. at July 20, 2006 05:34 PM

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Sorry, that last one got chopped off because it was too long. But you got the gist I am sure.

Now for the next one.

As I ''recall'' Steve, you emailed me after this one was printed to ask why I had not surveyed you.

Stand by ...

Posted by: Antonia Z. at July 20, 2006 05:36 PM

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Conservative win could spark serious blogorrhea
Antonia Zerbisias
665 words
17 January 2006
The Toronto Star
ONT
C04
English
Copyright (c) 2006 The Toronto Star
Four days after next Monday's federal election, Toronto's (mostly) conservative bloggers will be drinking it up at a downtown pub. Judging from the polls, it will be a celebration of victory, one in which they had no small role.

For the past few years, they've been bashing the Liberals, for everything from not saluting U.S. President George W. Bush to the income trust scandal.

Oh sure, every once in a while they would take aim at columnists and pundits whom they perceived to be liberal/Liberal, but most of their fire was aimed at the government.

So what if the Conservatives win? Will mainstream media (MSM) journos who perform their watchdog role be lined up against the virtual wall?

I posed this question both on my own blog last week, and by email to bloggers on both sides of the political spectrum. Because of space constraints, their edited answers are here. Full answers are on my blog.

"While I've no doubt that the Blogging Tories en masse will take a run at the media ... I suspect the larger blog guns will be aimed straight at the CPC (Conservative Party)," wrote the right-leaning Jay Currie on my blog. "What is not paid much attention to in the MSM is that the CPC is at best a rickety coalition of currently silent (social conservatives), free market business and policy wonks, a smattering of confused 'red tories,' some serious decentralists and a garnish of libertarians. Or, more accurately, cats in a burlap sack...

"The media will take some well (and not so well) deserved shots; but the main bout will be the scrap over the soul of the CPC."

Which prompted NDPer Robert McClelland (My Blahg) to thunder: "Good gawd you're naive, Currie. There are currently five conservative provincial governments and the conservative bloggers' silence when it comes to criticizing any of them is deafening.

"Any journalist who dared to criticize a Harper government would be given the Swift Boat treatment..."

And from my email bag:

"I really believe that the fanatical blogging Tories will turn en mass (sic) against Harper," writes Calgary Grit Bart Ramson. "Harper is going to govern like Mulroney and we all remember that the Reform Party was a protest movement against Mulroney. Ergo, the old Reformers are going to feel that Harper has 'sold out'..."

Toronto conservative blogger Bob Tarantino (Let It Bleed) tends to agree: "Assuming the CPC wins (still a big 'if" at this point) the first few months will see something akin to drunken euphoria amongst conservatives.

"What happens after that will be a function of two things: whether it's a majority or minority government and how badly the Liberals do (in terms of seat count). If it's a majority and the Liberals are trounced, then the 'coalition' that comprises the CPC will splinter, and online pundits will start sniping at the party and each other.... If it's a majority and the Liberals still place strongly, the coalition will likely still splinter, but not as quickly and not as deeply. In a minority situation, I think the dynamic will remain the same as prior to and during the election: guns trained on the media and the Liberals."

Last word goes to Ottawa's Phantom Observer, who prefers to remain anonymous:

"Even if Paul Martin were to pull off a patented miracle and stay in power, there would still be increased scrutiny of the media in Canada," he wrote. "More to the point, there would be increased scrutiny of the media *elite* in Canada, as use of the Internet becomes cheaper and more pervasive.

"Of course it's a good thing. Because if nothing else, it will increase the power of critical thinking about media, something that has been sorely lacking in the decade prior to the explosion of the Web."

Posted by: Antonia Z. at July 20, 2006 05:39 PM

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Entertainment
Blogs rolled ever onward in 2004
891 words
19 December 2004
The Toronto Star
ONT
C12
English
Copyright (c) 2004 The Toronto Star
In media terms, 2004 was definitely the year of the blog.

That's why I almost fell off my bar stool last week when a fellow Star scribe revealed he didn't know what a blog is. Hadn't he been paying attention to, um, the world?

"Blog" - as you, dearest and most faithful reader, well know - is short for weblog, an online repository for, depending on the host's passions and predilections, news and views about everything from pop culture to politics to pantyhose, with links to other like-minded blogs.

According to dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster, "blog" topped the most looked-up terms on its website in 2004.

Which means that, despite the hype, blogs remain alien to most. In fact, although the number has likely grown, only 4 per cent of wired Americans regularly visit blogs, according to a 2003 survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

So perhaps my colleague can be forgiven for being out of the bloop.

The beauty of blogging is that it is immediate. You can post items anytime, quickly make corrections - and never face the constraints of a column which forces writers to deliver only what the page can hold.

Anybody can start a blog. And, given the ankle-biting nature of many of them, anybody does.

"(T)he typical blog is written by a teenage girl who uses it twice a month to update her friends and classmates on happenings in her life," reports Perseus Development Corp., a web-surveying outfit.

"The median income generated by a weblog is zero dollars," notes Foreign Policy, in an article co-authored by political science professors Daniel W. Drezner and Henry Farrell (themselves both bloggers). "Blogging is almost exclusively a part-time, voluntary activity."

No wonder that two-thirds of blogs are infrequently updated, or even abandoned. Yet, the blogosphere is expanding so fast that, projections are, in 2005, there will be 10 million. Who knows how many more blogs were launched since you started reading this column?

Although some have been around for a while, it was only this year that blogs attained critical mass. And I do mean critical: About a dozen American political blogs - on the right and left - made the mainstream media take notice, especially during the presidential race.

That's because the bloggers galvanized millions of netizens to act, either by donating money to campaigns or flooding the online polls to declare their candidate the victor in the debates, or inundating news organizations with emails calling them out on errors or perceived biases.

You could sense their impact every time an anchor would wrap up live coverage of, say, a speech by the Democratic contender with words like, "That was John Kerry speaking in Cleveland. Earlier, we had live coverage of President George W. Bush's speech in Cincinnati."

Without that caveat, a Bush-backing blogger somewhere would spur irate readers to bombard the network with angry emails accusing it of bias.

"Blogs are now a 'fifth estate' that keeps watch over the mainstream media," observe Drezner and Farrell.

This year, pro-Bush bloggers took credit for forcing CBS' Dan Rather to apologize for using questionable documents in attacking Bush's questionable National Guard record.

Some insist that the blog is to the information age what Gutenberg's press was to the dark ages: a seismic shift that gives the power of the written word to the masses. "The revolution," they cry, "will be blogged!"

Perhaps. But first the bloggers have to get out of their pyjamas and into the streets.

While it's true that anybody can now become an online publisher, pontificator or prophet, it doesn't necessarily follow that, if a blog goes up in the cybersphere, everybody can hear. I mean, there is only so much time to read the damn things.

Over the past year, I have learned from and enjoyed many - too many to name here. But I would like to point to a few Canada-based blogs that deserve some attention.

RIGHT-WHINGERS: Best place to begin is with the Western Standard's Shotgun (westernstandard.blogs.com) where you'll find a cross-section of bloggers cross-posting to this site and their own. On meatriarchy.blogspot.com, you'll find rants about Prime Minister Paul Martin and raves about spareribs. Daimnation! at damianpenny.com is usually astute but predictable while letitbleed.blogs.com is obsessed - brilliantly - with the Star. Brock On The Attack (noncogent.blogspot.com) is literate and unabashedly conservative.

LEFTIES: My Blahg (myblahg.blogspot.com) is always challenging. You have to love stageleft.info for its outrage. Peace, Order and Good Government ( www.pogge.ca ) has liberal views on Ottawa and the U.S.

JUST FOR FUN: Both betterlivingcentre.ca and torontoist.com focus on local culture and media. And for us girls, secretstorm.blogspot.com is a gal pal in your computer; she knows just what you're thinking about: boys, clothes and Bush.

GOODWILL HUNTING: Thanks to the thousands of readers who wrote to me this year, in support or outrage. Every day brings inspiration, provocation and profanity. Here's to peace in 2005.

244952-168279.jpg | myblahg.blogspot.com is a provocative left-wing blog bringing you one man's take on the news. | ;

Posted by: Antonia Z. at July 20, 2006 05:41 PM

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Still wondering where I called Robert my ''researcher.''

I think you hate himn because he's so good.

Thanks for the bandwidth.

Posted by: Antonia Z. at July 20, 2006 05:44 PM

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You simply lost all creditability by calling Robby the Red "good."

Should have quit while you were only slightly discredited, Antonia.

Posted by: Yukon Gold at July 20, 2006 08:31 PM

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Z., you have credited him and thanked him in your blog for providing you with information, I saw the post. Maybe it doesn't make him your "researcher" but he's your colleague, maybe "volunteer support staff", whatever, go ahead and get your knickers in a knot over precise terminology.

Posted by: anonymous at July 20, 2006 09:40 PM

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Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...it is a researcher.

Either McClelland's work to scour the web for stories and his posts about them are a major source for your work, or not. At least twice in print you've said that he is not just a source, not just a major source, but a top source. Quibble all you want on the word "researcher", but it sure looks like you use his work a lot, and you've said so yourself.

Why don't you give up on the I-didn't-use-the-word-researcher angle and give Warren an honest answer to his question: How is it that you use McClelland so much as a source/researcher/whatever, despite some of the let's say questionable things he's posted?

Hanging on to this "researcher" thing is evasive and borders on dishonest. Answer his question.

Posted by: Steve Janke at July 20, 2006 10:12 PM

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I think you hate himn because he's so good.

I don't hate him. I think he's creepy. I think he prioritizes his politics over common human decency.

But I don't hate him.

And good? Sure <snicker> whatever <snicker>

Posted by: Steve Janke at July 20, 2006 10:15 PM

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Actually, I think she did answer it, it's because she thinks McClelland is "so good". She apparently admires him and holds him in high esteem.

Posted by: anon at July 20, 2006 10:17 PM

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And some Bloggers never get mentioned at all.

Robert is a fiesty one, for a flabby socialist and AZ has more balls than a brass monkey, and she's a girl!

But Warren Kinsella and the moribund National Post are dead men walking, I hear.

Re-floating the financial ballast has just about turned her Turtle.

Conrad is aghast.

Will Warren come clean all by his lonesome, or will he allow AZ to have the first go at CWG for their self-induced implosion, a real 'death star' in reverse.

And Izzy is rolling in his grave at Leonards latest nonsense.

Now theres on for the wonky socialist to munch on, instead of chewing off AZ's tail for giving McClelland his due, no matter how outlandish he gets.

Posted by: Mark-Alan Whittle at July 20, 2006 10:19 PM

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From the comments on her blog Antonia " adores Robert".

The first time the Star claimed the Post was going bankrupt was the day Black announced he was publishing a new newspaper. Wishfull thinking.

Posted by: buckahed at July 21, 2006 12:55 AM

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Good to see that "WarKins" has assumed his natural destiny as the patron blovbuoyo of rt. wing canuck cranks.

This of course complements Me Chinchilla's nasty- boy career as a lobby weasel and odious Grasperite rantrat.

Methinks, however, that Mme. Zerbie should spend less time obsessing on other people's fatuous blog comment strings and more time working up original interviews and well-researched analyses re: media concentration and her own MSM overlords!

Posted by: Scott Disher at July 21, 2006 01:02 AM

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Tempest in a teapot.

Old lib buddies staging little bouts in public for mutual ratings enhancement. Very human.

Someone here in Courtenay has a PERSONALIZED license plate on their car that reads **My Blahg** and if memory serves, [iffy], I had a look and found much to do with lawyers and law. Curious.

I better look again to see if I*m off base.

In the mean time, keep alert for the new release.. **Who killed the electric car** movie.

The EV would bring ME head choppers like Ahmadinejad, Muqtada al - Sadr and Naswrallah to their knees in short order, but it would lose gas tax revenue for keeping our roads and bridges up and the unemployment in regular auto and oil production would be massive.
Photos and links GM EV1 and Toyota EV....
http://TonyGuitar.blogspot.com
Quel dillema. = TG

Posted by: TonyGuitar at July 21, 2006 01:21 AM

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Is Blahgger Bob "good"?

Actually, he is. He's good a stirring up controversy. He's good at derision and invective. He's good at irritating the targets of his writings, which he seems to feel is a strong step in making his point. He's good at polarizing conversations. This is what distinguishes him from the run-of-the-mill, regular name-calling troll.

The stuff of great saints is the stuff of great sinners.

Posted by: PhantomObserver at July 21, 2006 07:48 AM

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Wow, that doesn't speak well for the chick from The Star. Commending a site when that site has specifically said f the jews. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at this as the Star has been known for many decades as the Red Star. I wonder if its a takeoff of liberal colours or USSR, or maybe a combination of both.

Posted by: None at July 21, 2006 08:14 AM

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The "F--- the Jews" post was too subtle, from a blogger not known for subtlety. It was an attempt to discuss anti-Semitism, not to be anti-Semitic. I bet he's sorry he ever posted that one, because the title is all that anyone knows or cares to remember. He should have put the damn phrase in quotation marks.

Posted by: Dr.Dawg at July 21, 2006 09:56 AM

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Remember that, first and foremost, the Star has to "sell soap" and the typed entertainment that fills the spaces between all the advertising has to capture the maximum popular attention. Obviously, Zerb has been commercially evaluated as appealing to the average Toronto consumer.

Posted by: aintgotnobody at July 21, 2006 10:11 AM

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I just did a flyby of Zerb's blog and I'm not surprised she worships McClelland. In fact, it makes perfect sense. Go there and you'll see what I mean.

I found the thread about the ever-windy Helen Thomas particularly amusing. Especially since Zerb has a pet name for another media figure... "she-who-will-nevermore-be-named-in-this-blog" a.k.a. Ann Coulter.

Ah yes! Helen Thomas versus Ann Coulter. They share one common trait- both represent the most extreme and intolerant views of their particular political ideology. At least Coulter doesn't pretend to be unbiased and she works for a living.

Posted by: Mac at July 22, 2006 12:45 AM

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Am I allowed to think that Warren and Robert are different cheeks on the same horse's ass? Or that would that make me inconsistent and strange?

Posted by: Peter at July 22, 2006 01:42 AM

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"Am I allowed to think that Warren and Robert are different cheeks on the same horse's ass? Or that would that make me inconsistent and strange?" Posted by: Peter

You may very well be "inconsistent and strange", but all this time I thought that it was Warren and Steve that were different cheeks on the same horse's ass, Peter.

How could I have gotten things so wrong?

Posted by: arthurdecco at July 22, 2006 07:17 AM

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Every time I think you can't possibly get dumber, Angry, you confound me by getting dumber.

Let me distill the substance of your argument: if you read someone, that makes him your researcher.

Okay, then.

Posted by: wonderdog at July 22, 2006 11:13 AM

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