What we have here is an old fashioned media brawl, let’s jump in

I spent some time catching up on all things Mississippi across the media spectrum yesterday and what I found was rich. Let’s start with some hypocrisy:

Non-profit journalism ~ Wyatt Emmerich

Emmerich’s piece reveals to his readers the new not for profit kid on the Mississippi Media scene, Mississippi Today as he pans the nonprofit news model:

For decades, traditional media outlets have struggled to resist editorial pressure from advertisers. This pressure will be far more intense from direct contributors.

It is at that point that I started giggling because Emmerich revealed the basic weakness in both journalistic business models. That said there is no denying Patsy Brumfield and others did a fantastic job covering state government in detail over the past legislative session, a very worthy journalistic beat which lends itself well to what is called “enterprise reporting”.

It is that bit of sunshine shown by Mississippi Today that I think has given the far right wing media heartburn because there is a new kid on the block that does not necessarily drink the Mississippi GOP Koolaid and when this past legislative session was stripped naked with the specter of GOP legislators being told how to vote via text message it was not a pretty sight. Add to that the fact Mississippi Today is a new competitor to the for-profit outlets so there is going to be a natural tension between some of the market participants. It is rich.

This I know, it is good to have Patsy Brumfield back doing journalism.

Speaking of hard hitting, the Clarion Ledger’s Sam Hall took some heat from Wayne Weidie over his Op-Ed piece, “Bankruptcy of leadership among state leaders”. A fair read of Hall’s Op-Ed piece shows his analysis was completely supported by facts, including a few Hall did not mention such as Legislators voting blind on the State’s budget (after receiving instruction on how to vote via text message). This in turn raises the spectacle of what Slabbed has previously termed dancing “naked in the pale moonlight”. The concept is no different when a state stooge Legislator does it. Lest I digress.

Wayne’s criticisms of Sam Hall seem to deal with some text message he received after Sam’s column came out that loudly proclaimed Hall, a Democrat, is turning the Clarion Ledger into an organ of the Democratic party.  It is a sure sign Hall’s piece stung the State GOP when the best retort is to say don’t trust Hall because he is a Democrat.

Speaking of stooges state legislators, there is a reason it is good to have a very wide variety of viewpoints presenting a variety of facts, such as the inconvenient fact that our current budget shortfalls that have now resulted in mental health facilities closing is almost equal to the amount of previously passed corporate tax cuts, carve outs and outright giveaways previously OK’d by the legislature. Corporate welfare, isn’t it a grand thing?

You’d never know that fact from watching WLOX News This Week though. The segment from a few weeks back styled “Legislative Revenue” featuring state stooge legislator Sean Tindell was beyond pathetic (and yet still well worth watching). In the make believe world that is often Tee Vee news, reality is a far different critter where stooges legislators like Tindell actually think they’ve done a good job.

The above is just a small sampling of the overall scrum but if you take one thing away from today’s post is to check out Mississippi Today, our equivalent to the Texas Tribune. Meantime down here on the Coast everyone seems to be getting on fairly well, except for Slabbed ragging WLOX that is ;-).