Online Media

CNN Contributor Roland Martin continues to serve his suspension for incendiary comments he made on Twitter. He’s still making the rounds and apologizing to anyone who will listen, but he continues to generate SEVERAL tweets over the course of the day. We have been fascinated to follow him to see what a person who has been suspended for his tweets will talk about. Today, Martin writes about the groundbreaking ceremony for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. He even included this picture to prove it.

Denyce Graves singing at the groundbreaking of the National Museum of African American History and Culture twitter.com/rolandsmartin/…

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) February 22, 2012

It’s such a big event that POTUS showed up for the groundbreaking. What a powerful moment. America’s first African-American President on hand to break ground on the museum dedicated to African American History. Martin tore through several tweets chronicling the event and then moved on to an area of  equal importance.

Any of y’all catch “Paul Mooney: The Godfather of Comedy”? This boy is a straight fool! — rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) February 22, 2012

Thanks for the tip, Roland! Stay tuned for another edition of everyone’s favorite tweeting “straight fool”, Roland Martin, when we meet again for “What’s Roland Tweeting”.

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Back in July when The Daily Caller‘s Matthew Boyle was a budding reporter, he caught flack from his colleague Jeff Poor for using a TV appearance still as his Twitter profile picture. Poor said using a screen shot for a photo “seems douchey.”

Poor changed his own profile picture to a photo of Boyle in a fake tuxedo and vowed to leave it unchanged until Boyle swapped his own out for one less “douchey.”

Eventually both parties changed their photos and professional, uniform photos for all staff was mandated by The Daily Caller. But many of the writers do not use the new ones as Twitter profile pictures. They use a variety of pictures, including, ahem, the alleged “douchey” TV appearances.

Since then, two other reporters from the publication, resident egomaniac Michelle Fields and, more recently Alex Pappas, have used the same type of photos for their Twitter profile pictures. And yet they don’t seem to be getting the hazing Boyle got.

We asked Poor what he thought of Pappas’ new photo. He said he hadn’t noticed the change, but called it “very disappointing.” Boyle has not returned request for comment. Fields and Pappas have, but not with anything we can actually use, unfortunately.

While many people have come after us for our “stalker-ish” obsession with the Daily Caller’s Michelle Fields, nothing we have written has reached the level of this. Fields shared this picture on FaceBook to let us know that an adoring fan, Scott Wilkie, drew this for her. Apparently, we missed the “Self-Obsessed Journalist Collection” of the Color-by-Numbers book series. We assumed that Fields Fans were used to this type of behavior, but some were a little skeeved out by this. One person writes simply “Stalker”, while another writes in “Things just got creepy.” Fields just calls the artwork of herself “awesome.” And she’s not alone in her feelings. One person says, “Great art, great woman.” Another chimes in saying that it “looks like liberty.” The piece is SUCH a hit that Fields’ mother weighs into the conversation and asks to buy a copy of the piece. Wilkie responds that he is now SELLING the artwork for $55.95 at his website. If you don’t like the Michelle portrait, Wilkie also has this print up for sale.

It’s one of several scantily-clad, busty ladies bent over heavy machinery on the website. Considering Michelle’s past experiences, maybe it’s not the best idea for her to encourage Fields Fetishists to send in more prison art. As her fans continued salivating over the picture, one commenter, Joe Barton, suspiciously asked the artist, “Scott, you don’t swim in the Fishbowl, do you?” Well, Joe…  He does now.

It’s the time of year that journos, especially those on TV dread the most. Flu season. It strikes when you’re least expecting it and it can wreak havoc on your work schedule. Fortunately, for now, Bret Baier of Fox News has avoided it. But, his family has been touched with the illness, as he tweets this morning.

Good morning – heading in early.The 24 hr Flu hit my house – this has been a sick winter for the Baier household- Thoughts on the day?

— Bret Baier (@BretBaier) February 21, 2012

Well, at least he left the house early. Leaving his wife and kids to fester in their own sea of germs and disease. You gotta love that attitude… ‘My family is sick, so I’m getting the hell outta Dodge!’

Since online journalism is stuffed with more meaningless and weird “fillers” than a generic brand hotdog, I took at look at the few of the “less important” features stories making the rounds of the Internet’s waiting room.

Just Dumb – Hipsters and “progressives” love American Apparel so much that they’re stealing from it. HuffPost has a story about how American Apparel is the top choice for hipsters. It would probably be more accurate to call them “douchesters” if they’re fans of American Apparel. Anyway, these douchesters apparently not only love to shop there, they love to shoplift from there, too. It seems, as far as shoplifters go, “many of them indistinguishable from the chain’s loyal customers.” I can think of one difference – paying. AA, having had enough of this sort of loyalty, is imposing new security measures HuffPost thinks might drive away more douchester customers. It’s an important story for the tiny percentage the population who shops and/or steals from this crappy chain.

America’s Perpetual First Daughter – Remember when Chelsea Clinton signed a 90-day contract with NBC News to do features on “Rock Center”? If the ratings are any indication, you don’t. Fear not, as her contract comes to an end, the daughter of the former President and current Sec. of State won’t be going hungry anytime soon. Aside from living off her family’s millions and however much money she earned as a hedge fund manager while her mother was attacking her profession in 2008,  she is set to re-up with Media Matters’ favorite “news” outlet. It would seem the producers think her horrible reporting style and delivery dovetails perfectly with a lack of audience. Congratulations to her! Keep up the … work?

Just…Shoot Me – What’s more interesting than reading about two people no one cares about arguing? Watching paint dry on growing grass. But that didn’t stop HuffPost from writing about how CNN’s Erin Burnett and Salon’s Glen Greenwald had a Twitt-War over coverage of Iran’s attempts to build a nuclear weapon. Who wasn’t riveted by that? Everyone.

These are but three stories cluttering HuffPost’s pages. And I didn’t even get into their post about the sex life of one of the Kardashians and her husband of the moment – which is more headline and less sex.

CNN contributor Roland Martin continues to serve a suspension for Twitter comments that were interpreted as hateful and promoting violence towards gays. While Martin has already apologized profusely for the comments, he just can’t seem to stop begging for forgiveness. This weekend, on his TV One show, “Washington Watch”, he talked about his ongoing conversation with GLAAD. GLAAD issued a lengthy release about “Why Language Matters” and accepted Martin’s apology yet again. At some point, this theater will get tired and played out. But, for now, keep it coming! And make sure to check back in tomorrow for another edition of “What’s Roland Tweeting.”

If you ever wonder what MSNBC Contributor and Daily Beast columnist Meghan McCain thinks about anything, and care about the answer, you are alone and should find the nearest bridge. If you, like me, read her blog to see just how far someone with no talent can go in this country (as long as they have rich, famous and powerful parents to milk), then read on.

I can’t say Meghan “isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer” because she’s, at best, a spoon. Even the butter knife reads her stuff, or hears her talk and thinks, “Oh, dear God.”

Yesterday, in reply to someone named “Purlgrrl,” Meghan took on one of the most pressing issues of the day – “Who is your favorite president, and why?”

Many have been asked this question before and, if you’re of average intelligence, it normally leads to an interesting discussion of accomplishments of various presidents, and helps you learn something about the person answering it. But we’re not dealing with someone of average intelligence, we’re dealing with someone who thinks President Obama deserves an “emoticon of privacy.”

Right off the bat you know this is going to be a stupid post. When someone writes or says “It goes without saying,” you know whatever it is we could do without. It’s used here because Meghan thinks it makes her sound as though she’s given this some serious thought.

She may have given her answer serious thought, as much as she can.

Here is her answer…

Read more

Earlier this week, we started paying closer attention to the Twitter account of Roland Martin. After all, when someone gets in as much trouble as he did for his Twitter comments, we were DYING to know what he could possibly say. Well, yesterday we found a very sad Martin. He was in mourning. Yesterday was the funeral for legendary Soul Train host, Don Cornelius.

“Tough day in LA for many Blacks in Hollywood. The funeral of Don Cornelius is being held today at 3 pm. I know many who are attending.”

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) February 16, 2012

It only gets worse. We not only lost Cornelius, we lost Whitney Houston as well. Martin says the pain is simply too much for some people to bear.

Then a number of folks are headed to New Jersey for Whitney Houston’s funeral. Lots of pain. Many couldn’t do my show because it’s too soon

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) February 16, 2012

America thanks you, Roland. Just like football after 9-11, you’re helping us heal.

 

A story at BuzzFeed from yesterday has been adjusted after FBDC pointed out its awkward headline and photo choice.

The original BuzzFeed story, by Rosie Gray, was written under the headline “Another Problem at Conservative Conference: Whorishness.” Accompanying the story was a large photo of conservative blogger Melissa Clouthier, who had written a post on her own blog about “slut”-like attendees at CPAC last weekend.

We pointed out that an inattentive reader could easily mistake the “whorish” headline as referring to Clouthier in the photo.

BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith contacted us to note that a previous post by Gray used a photo of conservative activist Erick Erickson to illustrate comments Erickson had made on his own site RedState. But the headline for that particular post on BuzzFeed was “Erick Erickson Scolds Young Conservatives For Treaing CPAC Like Spring Break.” That’s quite different.

Regardless, BuzzFeed has swapped out the photo in the post about Clouthier’s CPAC comments. The art accompanying the story is now a screen cap of Clouthier’s blog rather than a photo of Clouthier herself.

When reporting on anything that could potentially be offensive, journalists typically take great care when pairing up images with words. But not today’s BuzzFeed. Case in point, a Tuesday post by the fabulously named Rosie Gray. The post took a sampling of a conservative blogger’s personal rant on the “sluts” who attended CPAC.

“Another Problem at Conservative Conference: Whorishness,” blared BuzzFeed‘s headline of the item. It was paired with a large photo of Melissa Clouthier, the blogger who wrote the “sluts” rant. See the screen cap above.

In the full context of BuzzFeed‘s post, there’s nothing wrong with paring that headline with that photo of Clouthier. But to an unwitting reader (and let’s be honest, the unwitting reader has got to be at least 30 percent of BuzzFeed‘s audience) who simply takes a quick glance, it leaves the impression that Clouthier may be among the so called “whores.”

We emailed Clouthier to see what she thought about her mug being set under that headline. “BuzzFeed is doing what they can for hits,” she said, adding, “This is typical of the misogyny of the left and I’m used to it.”

We’re not sure if Gray is actually politically aligned with the left. We reached out to her for comment and will update if she responds.