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Pundit Tucker Carlson publicly announced Tuesday that a right-leaning news site resembling the Huffington Post he's been planning will go live within weeks.(Hat tip: Hot Air Headlines.) How long until the Culture 11-style Hindenburg-at-Lakehurst explosion of
Carlson will launch TheDailyCaller.com, which he said would focus on reporting on the Obama administration and "adding facts to the conversation."
"We are a general-interest newspaper-format style site," Carlson told conservative bloggers at the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday. "There just aren't enough people covering this administration and telling the people what's going on."
UPDATE: Despite my ignorance of news and online publishing, I just found what's called a "Web page" named "Google," which you can use to look up stuff. And I was surprised to find that, just two weeks ago, it was announced that Tucker Carlson had been hired by something called "Fox News" (it connects to your television set with what's called a "cable").
So maybe this online thing is just a hobby for him, at least until he gets fired from Fox like he did from CNN and MSNBC.
UPDATE II: Advice to Tucker Carlson: It had better not suck. See, the thing is, even though I'm not one of The Republicans Who Really Matter -- not the kind of "influential" guy who can get you hooked up with a TV gig -- you would never want to make me your enemy. Just ask Ross Douthat.
Or John McCain. Let you in on a little secret: Part of the rationale of this blog, originally, was the hope that somebody in the Republican Party might notice and be smart enough to think, "Hey, that loose cannon could be dangerous," and then inquire about the price to get it off deck. I'm notoriously lazy, and getting paid not to blog would be a sweet gig.
But I overestimated their intelligence. (You'll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of GOP political operatives.) Nobody ever got in touch with me, and by the time the campaign really got rolling, I'd completely forgotten about my original get-rich-quick scheme, and pretty soon I was racking up some impressive traffic and . . .
Well, now Technorati tells me the site's worth more than $200,000. Man, to think what I'd have done for even $50,000 as late as mid-2008. Chumps.
What's funny is that on The Frumnozzle's blog, the liberals have free reign to gab on and on without anyone calling them on it.
ReplyDeleteKinda funny. Yeah Frum, that's gonna work bud.
He does seem to be the kiss of death. I dumbly shelled out $ 25 bucks for his book, Politicians, partisans, and parasites. I got more out of swatting a brown recluse with it than actually reading.
ReplyDeleteRSM -- You were at CPAC, weren't you?
ReplyDeleteRemember Carlson lecturing the crowd about the need to create news organizations that were conservative-friendly, but still not just opinion-centred?
This seems to be his kick at the can.
Maybe it'll crash and burn. On the other hand, I laughed at the HuffPo when it launched, and it seems to have caught on...
Ben, I was there, and blogged about it at the time. Having spent 10 years at The Washington Times, I know a thing or two about reporting news, and was insulted by this assertion by Carlson -- a rich-boy TV pundit -- that conservatives weren't doing reporting.
ReplyDeleteWhat about NewsMax? Human Events? The American Spectator? National Review? CNS? Townhall? All of these are conservative organizations that employ news reporters.
I remember seeing Byron York in a gym at a Sarah Palin rally in Pennsylvania, reporting from the scene. Tucker Carlson? Nope, he wasn't there.
Since leaving the Washington Times, I have been approached by various people trying to kick around the idea of something like what Carlson is talking about. I always tell them I'm interested, if they can raise the money, and will be glad to help them raise money if they're serious.
What's up with Carlson's site? Who's funding it? Who has he hired to run it? Dunno. I'm sure all that will become known. But unless he hires the right people, he'll fail. As I said in the case of Culture 11, personnel is policy. Once they hired David Kuo as CEO, everything that happened after that was more or less inevitable, because there was nothing in Kuo's background that indicated he had the experience to manage a project like that. Kuo simply did not know what he was doing, and the result was a predictable disaster.
Does Tucker Carlson know what he's doing? We'll see. I know nearly every conservative journalist in Washington. The ones I don't know personally, I know by reputation. So when Carlson starts staffing up, I'll know if he's got the right crew or not.
At this point, I haven't heard zip about him starting this thing, so I expect that his announcement Tuesday was basically, "Hey, somebody's agreed to bankroll me," and he's bought a domain name and hired a page designer. If he had hired a news staff, I'm sure I would have already heard about it.
So it's wait-and-see. But if it crashes and burns, it will be the second Hindenburg-at-Lakehurst in two years.
I have not heard of this thing called t-e-l-e-v-i-s-i-o-n you speak of. Please enlighten me.
ReplyDeleteWell, I for one thank God that Tucker Carlson has stepped up to tell us what we think.
ReplyDeleteThis has got to be much simpler to manage than Journolist...
Oh man. You guys just reminded me of a podcast I heard in the last two months from Reason with Tucker Carlson. He was 100% on the "Rush is fool" bandwagon... and the proof was in the purely ad hominem nature of his remarks. The Reason guys were only too glad to join in... which made me lose a lot of respect for Reason. I'm more libertarian than I would like to admit, but these guys capital-L Libertarians often have their priorities in a double overhand secret twist granny knot. The time they waste on deregulating narcotics while freakin' North Korea and Iran are building DIY nukes boggles the mind in its insularity.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, the reactionary attitude to Rush, without an inkling of context or rebuttal to any of his views, spelled out in sparkling clarity the unseriousness of Carlson. I started thinking I had downloaded a segment from NPR.
You can also get FOX News by attaching that TV thingy to a satellite receiver. Or so I've heard.
ReplyDeleteAs for this Tucker Carlson you mention. I think my grandfather drove one. As I recall, the Carlson was the Tucker sedan-- not the coupe. No, hold it. He drove a Kazier Frazier. My error.
Having spent 10 years at The Washington Times, I know a thing or two about reporting news, and was insulted by this assertion by Carlson -- a rich-boy TV pundit -- that conservatives weren't doing reporting.Touché.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I guess all those "conservatives' problems are all down to the fact that they're not like me" lectures get old very quickly...
I'm better his success at 'Dancing with the Stars' will outlast his new portal or website or whatever the kiddies are calling it nowadays.
ReplyDelete(he lasted only one week.. my wife makes me watch.. really)
coffee's not worky this morner..
ReplyDeleteI'm BettING his success at....
I'm with you on "it better not suck," but let's not be cheerleaders for its demise, just yet, eh? At least wait to see if it really does suck or does conservatism a disservice.
ReplyDelete"I remember seeing Byron York in a gym at a Sarah Palin rally in Pennsylvania, reporting from the scene. Tucker Carlson? Nope, he wasn't there."
ReplyDeleteCarlson filed a few excellent reports during the 2008 campaign. Most memorable was a Gonzo-ish piece that included hookers, Ron Paul, and pot brownies. Hilarious and well-written.
Naturally, it appeared at TNR, since all the phony conservative organizations out there -- The Weekly Standard, National Review, Human Events, Townhall -- refused to print so much as one kind word about Dr. Paul.
Carlson's old MSNBC show was top notch, really premium. Proof that conservatives can put together a solid, civil, cerebral television product.
As for Carlson's CPAC performance: I couldn't quit grinning. If he had that generally wretched crowd (not you, Stacy) hooting, he was saying SOMETHING right. The movement's inability to take even the mildest criticism was shown there in all its pitiful grandeur.
I look forward to Carlson's publication.
Phil
P.S. NewsMax -- REALLY?