Helen Thomas and the Drudge Report
Of the statement by Helen Thomas --“Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine” --, the Washington Times noted:
Her remarks were scarcely reported at first, but when posted on the Drudge Report website at the weekend they provoked a storm of controversy in which outraged accusations of anti-Semitism quickly drowned out defenders of free speech.
MLive put it this way:
I tend to agree with Jo-Ann Armao, on the PostPartisan blog, who said it was wrong for the mainstream media to have given Thomas' comments a pass until Matt Drudge got a hold of them and posted them on the Drudge Report.
Armao correctly notes:
"What is far more likely is that the news media, with rare exceptions, are loath to subject their own to the scrutiny we routinely apply to others. Imagine, if you can, if those same comments had been made by a sitting governor, head of Fortune 500 company or even some Hollywood star."
The 24/7 television news channels, the Internet, cameras capable of taking video, social networking — all of these things have combined to create a world where you never know who is listening or recording you, so all of us — media, celebrities, politicians, business titans — had better be minding our mouths or else we could find ourselves in hot water.
The present final entry on wikipedia for Thomas: On June 7, Thomas tendered her immediate resignation from Hearst Newspapers and entered into retirement.
PajamasMedia: Helen Thomas has retired or — as Drudge wittily put it — been “sent to Poland.”
***As to utilizing little known references, in the patent world a single thesis in a German university counts as prior art (Hall), and what is written down really matters in patent law, no matter how obscure the location. Curiously, the internet can bring the obscure into the mainstream. The flip side is the ephemeral nature. The internet can be here today, gone tomorrow, as in the Sikahema effect. In the Thomas case, it won't matter. Sometimes it will.
On Hall, see also
When is a document a “Printed Publication”?
Her remarks were scarcely reported at first, but when posted on the Drudge Report website at the weekend they provoked a storm of controversy in which outraged accusations of anti-Semitism quickly drowned out defenders of free speech.
MLive put it this way:
I tend to agree with Jo-Ann Armao, on the PostPartisan blog, who said it was wrong for the mainstream media to have given Thomas' comments a pass until Matt Drudge got a hold of them and posted them on the Drudge Report.
Armao correctly notes:
"What is far more likely is that the news media, with rare exceptions, are loath to subject their own to the scrutiny we routinely apply to others. Imagine, if you can, if those same comments had been made by a sitting governor, head of Fortune 500 company or even some Hollywood star."
The 24/7 television news channels, the Internet, cameras capable of taking video, social networking — all of these things have combined to create a world where you never know who is listening or recording you, so all of us — media, celebrities, politicians, business titans — had better be minding our mouths or else we could find ourselves in hot water.
The present final entry on wikipedia for Thomas: On June 7, Thomas tendered her immediate resignation from Hearst Newspapers and entered into retirement.
PajamasMedia: Helen Thomas has retired or — as Drudge wittily put it — been “sent to Poland.”
***As to utilizing little known references, in the patent world a single thesis in a German university counts as prior art (Hall), and what is written down really matters in patent law, no matter how obscure the location. Curiously, the internet can bring the obscure into the mainstream. The flip side is the ephemeral nature. The internet can be here today, gone tomorrow, as in the Sikahema effect. In the Thomas case, it won't matter. Sometimes it will.
On Hall, see also
When is a document a “Printed Publication”?
posted by Lawrence B. Ebert at 5:21 AM
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