Political Reporting for Sale!! Come and Get it!!

Filed in National by on May 14, 2009

HEY Delaware politicos….

Do you want to buy some soft press treatment for yourself or your candidate of choice?

Only $5,000 …CHEAP!!

Here is what you get:

  • Regular feature pieces also known as “backrubs” !!
  • Softball questions at press conferences!!
  • Hatchet jobs on your political opponents!! 
  • The “Gold” listings that lazy readers love!!
  • The veneer of actual objective news coverage!!

 And best of all, this is a $5,000 campaign expense that will never show up on a campaign expense report!!!      Simply check the “____ No, I do not wish to be identified online.” box and this transaction will be kept 100% confidential.  

Act NOW!!

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

::End Snark::

Look.  Everyone has the right to earn a living, but can we just admit that we are not talking about objective journalism here?   It is the fraudulence that is killing me, not the bias.  Everyone is biased.

About the Author ()

Jason330 is a deep cover double agent working for the GOP. Don't tell anybody.

Comments (23)

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  1. anonone says:

    I wouldn’t mind it if she allowed unfiltered comments to all her posts.

  2. Are you trying to out a blogger? Because if you are, I can refer you to Nancy Willing. She loves to try and out people and then act like she has no idea what she did/is doing….

  3. This is pathetic.

    It just proves that Cohen now writes a ‘vanity column’, rather than anything that can be trusted as real news.

    At least Pepe LePew, Hal Haskell (‘bulo didn’t know he was still alive, seriously) and Jim Soles will have someone willing to quote them and to pretend that they still matter.

    And Celia can pretend that she still matters.

  4. Luckily, this blog still has a few grown ups on board…

  5. Cohen’s pieces were regularly printed in the Delaware State News. Going forward, will there be disclaimers now if they continue to post her on dead tree publications?

  6. MJ says:

    She also now appears during the 7:00 PM broadcast every Wednesday on WBOC for her “insightful outlook on Delaware politics.” Guess $5k gets you a lot of insight.

  7. John Manifold says:

    Journalists need to be paid. The New York Times, WHYY and every other news outlet takes $ from the people they cover. If this guy could get advertising, he’d use it too:
    http://ihaveabraininmyass.blogspot.com/

    Cohen’s columns never appeared in the DSN; former ownership of the Dover Post used them. Since her return to action, she’s had the best coverage of several topics. The more knowledgeable voices the better.

  8. Reis says:

    Isn’t “fraudulence” a polite term for stinky gas coming out of someone’s behind?

  9. John: She’s being paid by people to cover THEM. That’s what’s different about this.

    That is not journalism. That’s advertising, and should be labeled as such.

  10. Reis says:

    If jason can raise $1.5m plus another thousand, he can buy a listing for DE Liberal on Celia’s website!

    Actually, I think we ought to see if we can raise a thousand first, buy a link to DE Liberal from Celia’s website, and bargain for how much more it would cost to give UI and ‘bulo posting rights on her stellar internet reporting.

  11. Reis: If Jason can raise $1.5m plus another thousand, odds are that none of the DL contributors will ever be heard from ever again.

    Although you’ll be more than welcome to visit them in Hawaii…

  12. ‘Bulo – the first step to overcoming an addiction is to admit that you have one.

  13. John Manifold says:

    El: Pete du Pont is retired. Yeah, he showed up with two dozen others at the Steve Forbes dinner, but big deal. She’s not covering him now, and there were many times in the 1980s that he wished she hadn’t been covering him then.

    Hal Haskell has been inactive for years. He lost his wife last year, and remains one of the classiest men in Delaware; City People still agree that Hal was among Wilmington’s best mayors ever.

    One model of political blogging is to post screeds while at work. Another is to dig for news, and try to make a living. Sure, I’d rather her site be littered with Blogads, but with no newspaper in Delaware willing to pay a living wage for a political reporter, this will probably have to do.

  14. I can’t wait to become a contributor to CC’s blog. I’m sure I’ll be getting that offer any day now. The Soros grandliberalconspiracy dough is barely enough to keep my family in lattes and Volvos.

  15. jason330 says:

    JM –

    Please. Don’t pretend that Haskell and Dupont are the big contributors just because she put the names up top.

    Tom Carper and Mike Castle own the biggest pieces of Celia right now. Maybe Carney, Denn and Markell own a little bit and why not? It is cheap insurance.

    I don’t expect Celia to admit who is buying the soft coverage – but with her style, it will be pretty easy to figure out 5 months from election day.

    Like I said, she is entitled to earn a living – but she needs to stop pretending to be an objective reporter. It is sickening.

  16. It doesn’t seem like a great investment to pay someone to write nice things about you. Can’t you just read your own press releases for that?

  17. John: There was a time when Celia dug for news. She traded that in for ‘access’ to the powerful back when duPont and Haskell were powerful.

    She is now merely a conduit of whatever is fed to her by the people bringing her back.

    Were she more than that, then Grapevine wouldn’t have withered in the first place.

  18. John Manifold says:

    Will have to agree to disagree on that one, El. She’s done the best work on the McGlinchey-Daniello dust-up and has covered the court situation well.

  19. It’s OK, John. You’ve STILL got the best monicker on the board. That counts for a lot with El Somnambulo.

  20. I used to read her posts in the Newark Free Library which does not carry the Dover Post. I thought it was the DSN which I read regularly. She was on the editorial pages of the paper, FWIW.

    Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics:

    http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

  21. jason330 says:

    Awesome link Nancy.

    Act Independently
    Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know.

    Journalists should:

    —Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
    — Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
    — Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.
    — Disclose unavoidable conflicts.
    — Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.
    — Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.
    — Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money; avoid bidding for news.

    All righty then.

  22. David says:

    You’re just jealous because you couldn’t get people to pay you $500 to support you. That’s ok, I probably couldn’t either.

  23. David says:

    Get used to it when newspapers become non-profit.