Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Withdrawal Symptoms

The pundits will have to go into rehab--the TV talking heads, newspaper columnists, the bloggers who have been overdosing on Obama-Clinton for more than a year and just can't quit cold turkey.

Maureen Dowd ransacks pop culture to describe Hillary as "less Blanche than Scarlett. 'Heaven help the Yankees if they capture you,' Rhett told the willful belle at the start of her rugged odyssey.

"And heaven help the Democrats as they try to shake off Hillary. On top of her inane vows to obliterate Iran, OPEC and the summer gas tax, she plans 'a nuclear option' during her Shermanesque march to Denver...get the Florida and Michigan delegates seated."

"Is Hillary Done?" Howard Kurtz asks in the Washington Post but scrounges for evidence that she isn't after citing the New York Post headline "TOAST" and Andrew Sullivan confesses that Obama's "patriotic message tonight...moved me to my core" while noting that "African-American voters killed the Clinton candidacy."

The reluctance to let go brings back memories of what the politicians said after Eisenhower had a heart attack before his reelection in 1956: If he dies, they'll run him posthumously.

The Clinton campaign is now entering its life-after-death phase.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Dear Robert Stein,

We are a public service nonprofit organization that has launched the beta of what we believe is the highest quality news site on the Internet - www.dailysource.org.

Readers of the site receive high quality articles and information from over a thousand publications including daily papers, television network sites, newsmagazines, journals, blogs and others. Some of the top journalists in the U.S. work on the site backed up by 35 volunteers working 5 to 30 hours a week each.

More details about what DailySource.org offers are in the press release below. Looking at your site, it looks like you would be interested in what we are doing. If you would, please write about us in your blog and include us on your list of news sources. We are already on the source lists of many sites including refdesk.com and NPR's News Blog - http://www.npr.org/blogs/news/.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I would also love to hear feedback if you have any for us.

Best regards,

Peter Dunn
Founder

----

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Nonprofit organization launches national daily news site

New site delivers news, columns, editorials, photos, videos and more hand-picked from hundreds of sites around the Internet daily in a single location for free.

WATERTOWN, Mass., May 7, 2008 - The Daily Source, an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to serving the public, has launched the beta of a news Web site that brings high-quality news and information from around the Internet to the public daily in a single place.

"We scour the web for high quality material - so our readers don't have to," explained founder Peter Dunn. "Most people don't have 20 hours in their day to spend searching for high-quality news, so we do the work and put it in one spot for them."

Editors at DailySource.org scan over one thousand publications including daily newspapers, television network sites, news magazines, journals, blogs and others. DailySource.org also gives readers easy access to establish links to other news sources, including local papers, a favorite sports site, or any sites of their choosing. The site allows seamless contact with members of the media and elected officials, and information on over 850,000 non-profits one can donate to or volunteer for.

Readers have the ability to rate the quality of articles they read, volunteer in various ways, email articles to friends, or submit links to articles they think are worthy of consideration for the front page. With all the features and opportunities for interaction, DailySource.org represents a new experience for news readers.

The site has a paid staff of experienced journalists from around the U.S. including Yvonne Lee, who prior to joining the Daily Source won an Emmy for her work covering September 11 for CNN, and Vince Winkel, who has won 20 awards for excellence in broadcast and online journalism while working for places like CBS, NPR, CNN, and the BBC.

The site has dozens of volunteers who search for articles and help produce the front page daily. "The first stage of the Web was about traditional media churning out quantity, the second was about everyday people producing quantity, and the currently unfolding third stage is about finding the quality within the massive quantity," explained founder Peter Dunn. "Being part of that is what attracts the large number of volunteers we have."

The Web site serves as a valuable resource for journalists, as a site they can visit for story ideas, breaking news and key trends. "DailySource.org is one of the first sites I read every morning to find out see what the big stories of the day are," said Tom Regan, currently head of NPR's online blog and a former front page editor of the Boston Globe's news site. "I also find a lot of cutting-edge trends there that we can blog about that I simply would not have the time to find otherwise."

"The Daily Source aims to become the primary news resource for readers who want intelligent, factual and accurate reporting," Dunn said. "Whether it's news, video, op-ed material, or live chats – it's all in one place ready for people when they come here."

A positive byproduct of the Daily Source service is that the news Web sites publishing the best quality news stories receive additional web traffic through the stories that DailySource.org links to. This enables them to keep publishing strong quality material.

A recent poll by USA TODAY, CNN and Gallup found that only 36 percent of Americans believe news organizations get the facts straight. "America has lost confidence in the media, but there is still some strong quality journalism available to the public spread out in various places," said Dunn. "We serve to collect it so readers can get it all in one site from a place they can trust."

CONTACT:

Peter Dunn
Executive Director
The Daily Source
(617) 459-7709
http://dailysource.org/
peter@dailysource.org