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12/06/2003 Archived Entry: "'Miserable Failure' and the media"
'Miserable Failure' and the media
Almost as wild as the snowstorm that whirled into town yesterday was the sudden and intense interest in yours truly regarding the Miserable Failure project. After one interview with a paper in New Jersey on Wednesday, I got press-swarmed yesterday and I'm still trying to figure out exactly why.
In the course of about 4 hours yesterday, I received emails or phone calls from four different news organizations (only one story has appeared so far, in Newsday). After spending a half hour on the phone with the Daily News' Joanna Molloy (which was a distinct pleasure, BTW), I opened an email from the technology editor from ABC News. As I was answering his questions, I got another email from Newsday's technology guy. And soon after that, I got a call from the technology writer from the New York Times (a mutual friend had passed my phone number to him when it was mentioned that he was writing a story about this whole thing). And I found out late last night that the guy who hosts Blah3 was contacted by Newsweek.
And I'm still trying to figure out where it all came from.
Who determined that this was a story all of a sudden? I seriously doubt that there was some sort of order from on high commanding that reporters from 5 different news organizations write about Old Fashioned Patriot's project (for the record, OFP and I decided via email yesterday that I'm his new press secretary). I know that there was a 'Hey Check this out' type of email circulating earlier in the week, and one guess is that all of the reporters who contacted me must have had it pop up in their inboxes.
The other question I had was 'Why are these people contacting me?'
I got the answer to this one from my comments. The person who writes Yet Another Web Site (on hiatus) dropped a comment that he was contacted by the Star-Ledger and referred the reporter to me, since this is where he heard about it. A couple of rightie blogs also have me listed as the source of the Google Bombing as well (which might explain the high volume of hate mail I got yesterday). How the rest of the reporters found me, though, remains unanswered.
There were a few weird things about all of the interviews, too.
It seemed as though they were all asking exactly the same questions (with the exception of Molloy from the Daily News - she seemed to be interested in the blogging world in general, and took lots of notes as I mentioned a handful of relevant blogs). 'How does this affect the integrity of search engines?' 'Was a Democratic campaign behind this?' 'How, exactly, did this work?' 'How many people took part?'
They also asked some general questions about me and this blog.
Do all reporters think of the same questions? Are they like a school of fish, all cutting the same way at the same time? It struck me as odd that they seemed so taken aback at the possibility that a search engine like Google could be 'gamed,' and one actually asked about the connection between Blogger and Google (I honestly wasn't sure about that, since I use different software and have only used Blogger for about a week while setting the software up here).
So, it's Saturday and both the press inquiries and the hate mail have dropped off again. I'm interested in seeing how the other four news outlets are going to spin this whole episode - they all seemed in a hurry to get their stories done, and more than one of them asked questions about who else had contacted me (one said that they would move the publishing date up to today so as not to get scooped by another).
If nothing else, the whole episode livened up an otherwise dull Friday.
Replies: 9 people speak up
be prepared that the coverage will probobly not be kind. i can see you being demonized as a liberal hatemonger on FOXSNBCNN, if not a cyber terrorist (also dont be surprised if you get audited this year...)
Posted by justin @ 12/06/2003 01:27 PM NY
The counterattack started. http://www.sophorist.com/archives/000677.html wants to link Hillary to the G.W.Bush
We should ensure that the Miserable Failure is correctly connected, and have to point to more places, like: "Why George W. Bush is a Miserable Failure "
We have to keep the name of the Good Senator away from the Dubia's achievements.
G.B.
Posted by GB @ 12/06/2003 02:32 PM NY
If you agree with the previous post, this is also a good for "Miserable Failure":
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/04/23_resume.html
Posted by GB @ 12/06/2003 03:13 PM NY
Somewhere, deep in the bowels of the Pentagon's War Room; somewhere, deep in the colon of the CIA's Black Ops Room, elaborate plans are being laid out to deal with Blah3 using "extreme prejudice."
Pal, it's been great reading your blog. When the burly guys in the suits and sunglasses come knocking on my door at 2:00 in the morning, I never heard of you, I love the Empire, I adore Emperor Bush, I love Fox News, I love Sir Rupert, I believe the Constitution is a commie/Bolshevik plot to deflower our chaste, White, Christian womenfolk. Rule #1 when living under an empire: never piss-off the Praetorian Guard.
Posted by Metropolitan99 @ 12/06/2003 07:55 PM NY
ESPECIALLY if you are The Emporor... Eh, Claudius?
Posted by Bob King @ 12/06/2003 07:59 PM NY
Add the "Miserable Failure" link to your blogroll. That means that every time your blog is viewed, the link is there...
Posted by Andrea @ 12/08/2003 09:26 AM NY
ONE MORE FOR THE BUSH BODY COUNT
http://utah.indymedia.org/news/2003/12/6955.php
Posted by Concerned Canadian @ 12/09/2003 12:57 AM NY
CNN LARRY KING LIVE
Interview With Barbara Bush
Aired October 22, 2003 - 21:00 ET
BUSH: ...And you can criticize me, but don't criticize my children and don't criticize my daughters-in-law and don't criticize my husband, or you're dead.
http://www.cnn.tv/TRANSCRIPTS/0310/22/lkl.00.html
Posted by Look out! @ 12/09/2003 01:25 AM NY
Not only is the story of typing 'miserable failure' in Google known in the VS, since today it's also known in Belgium. It was in a newspaper today. I personally think it's a great joke, but I can imagine that the republicans don't find it amusing.
Posted by Thraïn @ 12/09/2003 10:20 AM NY
