Loose DeKalb Lips Make Waves (Of Oppression) For AJC

Ahoy! Botched metaphor. I know.

Loose lips might sink ships, circa 1942, but they never torpedoed any ships of journalism. To the contrary. Lip flappers, whistleblowers, gossips and media whores power and embolden entire journalism empires, causing ships to rise off of copy tides. Just look at the numbers for the Guardian empire lately. Off the charts!

Over in less high profile seas, say here down South, in today’s 1-minute news cycle there really is no such thing as a genuine “scoop” brought about by wildly exclusive information. Except when there (rarely) is, of course.

But don’t tell that to the powers-that-be at the AJC, as they’re lashing any remaining, hardworking reporter-bees left on their deck to the mast and thrashing them mightily, as punishment for having failed to sight enough scoops in their cruddy little scopes.

Two independent sources have now told me how Atlanta Journal & Constitution reporters, good ones, are being “written up” (or threatened with some type of disciplinary action) for failing to bring home the bacon fast enough. Failing to reel in genuine news “scoops.”

(“Scoops” being 100% exclusive 411 about specific, non-public events – but before the event occurs, allowing for a news organization to be first out of the gate on disseminating word of that particular news situation; to “own the story” in other words, something that’s increasingly hard to do in our hyper-connected world unless Edward Snowden or Julian Assange just happens to waltz by your office and dump raw intel on your desk. And “written up” being a documented threat by one’s superior to take away one’s job, rank, authority, paycheck and/or general livelihood should you, the super’s underling, not perform in some sort of, subjectively, better manner.)

Mark Winne at WSB-TV, for example, often gets genuine scoops about soon-to-be-made arrests by various Georgia law enforcement, and is thus frequently the first and only reporter in place for that classic, high-value video, law enforcement-enhancing moment – ye olde perp walk.

Of course it’s one of those open secrets in Atlanta old media circles that Winne’s brother is an FBI or GBI agent (I forget which agency) who tips his family member, Mark, off to lots of special events soon to happen. If that’s the case, they’ve had a lock on a good-visuals franchise for years now, and will continue at that game for as long as the gig works, I suppose.

Arianna Huffington – Lone Tim Russert Hater

Well, not really. You’ll find loads of Tim Russert bashing at the always-vile DailyKos, a hideous blog I wouldn’t even deign to link to. (Well, maybe once.) But Arianna The Great (“Opportunist”) had a very public feud going with Russert for a while now. Wonder who she’ll turn her ammo on now that he’s dead? From NY Daily News:

Huffington said her swipes (at Russert) provoked NBC and MSNBC to ban her from the air, just as she was promoting a book.

Russert and his wife, Maureen Orth, said Huffington was the one with a vendetta. They contended that her spleen was payback for a 1994 Vanity Fair exposé Orth did on her former husband, Michael Huffington. Orth also claimed in a 2004 speech that Huffington was “the most ruthless, opportunistic person I’ve ever encountered.” As evidence, she pointed to Republican political consultant Ed Rollins‘ memoir, in which he claimed Huffington hired a detective to snoop on Orth.

Full post here. Fer chrissake… all these pointless people we can’t stop reading and posting about live in such elitist media castles I am hatin’ on ’em all about right now. Ed Rollins? He practically oozes oily sleeze right through the Big TV every night on CNN. And if I was going to hire a PI to snoop on someone, it sure wouldn’t be Tim Russert’s boring wife.

Yep, having a bit of a sour grapes kinda day ’round the WaySouth Media Plantation here.