There is no news

Thu 11/06/2008 2:59 pm. It was all a hallucination. Somewhere in the wandering years, it was tremendously exciting when information arrived in weeks, days, and then hours and minutes, and at ever lower prices, and it was indeed “new” — but it was never “news”, the mysterious daily unit of information which supposedly somehow encapsulates everything important that happened in the last 24 hours. ... It was always a fiction, promoted by those who sold the news, and then adopted in the twentieth century as a sacred truth by those who sold the Liberal Way of Life. ... But I cannot encapsulate the important things that happen in my little Long Island neighborhood in 15 minutes, much less the world in a day! ... Everyone knows this, and yet the Liberal piety is so strong that we feel we should believe in the sacredness of news, that even if it’s impossible and bankrupt, it’s somehow real....

This is so squalidly obvious in the days of the Obama Ascendancy: my pitiful QXR has been yammering about Ron Emanuel and his Chief of Staffness for two days now — and yet, the Shining Hope of Mankind has just ascended the Throne of Power! ... And in a totally-unrelated development the market is shooting through the floor. ... Yet there is still no news; somehow, it ground to a halt.

Where Has All the News Gone?

The newspapers and television news are dying off, so of course there’s no news, Owen; it’s gone bankrupt! ... That may be because everyone stopped paying for it; because it wasn’t news; it wasn’t new, it wasn’t information, it was random Liberal magical pieties and recycled moral dramas re-enacted by transparently-bogus hirelings — “news” talking heads and the repertory players of non-profits, holy caring Liberal politicians, and strange otherworldly organizations like Acorn and the United Nations.

... Even ignoring the 100% Liberal propaganda content of the Impartial Media, so splendidly demonstrated in the recent election, no one believes the news is worth anything, because everyone can find the same stuff on the internet 24 hours a day free. ... And if the bankrupting sellers of news want to complain that this free stuff is worthless — well, let us ponder what the pot is calling the kettle....