Lately there has been some talk about JournoList, "an off-the-record online meeting space," for "several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics," in the words of Politico reporter Michael Calderone.  Some reporters have admitted the existence of the e-mail group, but feel it would be "inappropriate" to say more.  Ooh, inappropriate!

Bothering to note the fact that these same talking heads would scream bloody murder at the 'collusion of the media-industrial complex' in a 'virtual smoky back room' if the people involved were anything other than leftists would be a tired cliché before the words were even typed.  Of course it's different for the good progressives to do something than for the evil conservatives.

So what?  The complete lack of self-examination in news outlets should not be news by now; biased reporting and sanitized editorials mark every newspaper but the Wall Street Journal and the late New York Post.  That most television reporters voted for 'The One,' Barack Obama, should be obvious and pathetic.  He didn't even have to charm them; they were waiting to be "tingled," as MSNBC's Chris Matthews might put it.  Does the fact that these people e-mail each other and their trusted sources change anything?  No.

Neither does the fact that it's "secret" change anything.  What happens on the list does not stay on the list; they become the featured talking points of the next news cycle.  Secrecy is great for drama but not really necessary for political action.  As an example, look at the recent remake of The Manchurian Candidate: an evil corporation secretly brainwashes a presidential candidate for their own nefarious purposes.  Now look at AIG and its special treatment - and the fact that it donated $100k to the New York Democratic Party just before the bailout.  Chris Dodd and Barack Obama don't have to be secretive about their support for their friends at Countrywide; nobody expects them to be other than honest politicians who stay bought once they're bought.  Experts agree: everything's fine.

One final nefarious plot, though.  Until about 15-20 years ago, most Americans pronounced the capital of Russia as "ma's cow."  This seems reasonable, since we spell it Moscow.  The Russians spell it Mockbá, which transliterates as "Moskva."  The Canadian anchor Peter Jennings, however, pronounced it as "MossCo," like some subsidiary of Petco or Costco.  Jennings' pronunciation had no more to do with the Russian than the American, but now nobody uses any other.  This pronunciation spread from ABC to the other networks and to everyday speech simply on the assumption that it was more correct.  Nobody bothered to pick up an encyclopedia.  Nobody called a contact in the State Department.  Uninformed, desperate trendiness was all that was needed for the media to expose the secret that they have an Orwellian "groupthink" consisting of uninformed, desperate trendiness.

Honestly, can the people on JournoList even organize a surprise party?  Oh, wait, discussion of that would be "inappropriate."  Ooh, the horrible secrecy of it!

My father's favorite bumper-sticker is, "Eschew Obfuscation," which is a fancy way of saying to avoid confusing speech (get it?)  This joke would be way over the heads of the advertising firm making commercials for Hillshire Farms.  The latest commercial takes place on an airplane and contains the following dialogue:

Disturbed Passenger: Oh, my, oh me, that lunch meat's bourgeoisie!
Smiling Flight Attendant: First class!

What?  This is so obscure and ignorant that it makes no sense.  The stewardess doesn't seem to be contradicting the passenger; is "bourgeois" supposed to be the same as "first class?"  In airline terms for economic classes, the aristocracy (land owners) fly first class, the bourgeoisie (business owners) fly business class, and the proletariat (workers) fly coach.

More disturbingly, there seems to be no understanding of the difference between a noun and an adjective.  (For those who work for the advertising team on this, a noun is a person, place, thing, or idea; an adjective describes a quality of such a person, place, thing, or idea.  In the phrase, "bad marketing,"  the word, "bad," is an adjective, while the word, "marketing," is a noun.)  Of course, bourgeois and bourgeoisie both mean "middle class," but the difference between the noun, "bourgeoisie," and the adjective, "bourgeois," is important: a bourgeois lunch meat may disturb an aristocratic airline passenger, but a lunch meat consisting of thinly sliced members of the middle class should disturb a great many more people.

Please note that the line does not scan or rhyme without that final "-sie."  The marketers have deliberately chosen this word!  I stand in solidarity with free agents, independent contractors, and business owners in rejecting Hillshire Farms until this deplorable policy of cannibalism has been abandoned.  When will this class warfare end?

(For those on the advertising team, that's a joke, by the way.  I'm only boycotting Hillshire Farms until you get fired; at some point you have to face the consequences of your own ignorance.)