Doc's Asshat

Doc over at Will Not Be Televised had a recent post that contained intimate details of the super secret Kansas City Press Club and Society of Professional Journalists conspiritorial forum on The Ethics of Blogging!

You can link to his entire post here.

But here is an excerpt...with hotlinks and illustrations courtesy of yours truly...

"So it seems that the KC Press Club was hosting a seminar on the ethics of blogging at the studio. In fact the station manager – a Steve Kuat – was ‘moderating’ the event, though if you ask me it was just people talking.”

“Oh, yeah. I read about that.”

“Okay – so there was one guy; a Professor Pearlmutter from KU who spoke for about 10 minutes about a book he wrote called “Blogger Wars”. A few people from other media, oh, and Christa Dubill.”

“Christa who?”



“I forget, you’re too good for TV.”

“Don’t start with that shit. It’s just since ‘The Sopranos” went off the air there’s no reason to watch TV.”

“I’ve told you, “ Warren says and now he’s back to the compulsive lick lick lick lick oh how the double helix unspirals differently in all of us, “ ‘The Sopranos’ was NOT a documentary.”

“Prove it, dood.”

“ANYHOW, Christa is an anchor there and she showed up and sat at the end of the table I was under.

She’s kinda cute but that well hell gal has much better bosoms…’



“Warren…”

“Okay. So, also, there was a rather statuesque redhead named Sponge and a tall, older peacock that said he was XO.”

“Peacock?”



“Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s spring, don’t get me wrong, but this guy was feeling his oats. He swaggers in, rolls kinda like a sailor just off ship and unused to the land not moving you know, wearing this yellow, I mean to say YELLOW blazer over a black and white Hawaiian print shirt, diamond stud in his right ear [...it was my left ear, thank you very much!]. He’s probably around your age, maybe older. I can’t tell with you humans. He shaves his head but I bet the fringe he owns would grow in as grey as his beard, so yeah, pretty old. Sponge and he sat together, though I don’t think she said one word the whole time.”

“Then there was a Russian, KC Meesha, that sound right?



Guy named Forsythe and a lady who showed later, name of Toast? Odd names. A college student who turned into a blogger, an ad exec who also blogs and some writer who was sitting next to Christa taking note after note. In fact that jackass kicked me a couple times when I was trying to get a better sniff of Christa’s legs. All in all, I’d say there were about 20 people there. The station manager seemed pleased.”

“20? The Kansas City Press Club web site says 40.”

“What can I say: they may be literate, but they can’t count for shit. There were no more than 20-21 people there, only 9 of them bloggers.”

The second orange soda is gone and I’ve cleaned and filled a pipe while Warren’s talked. I light it now, take a slow pull and sit on it a minute. When I’m done, I squat over where Warren’s stretched out in front of the couch, reverse the pipe and shoot smoke up his snout. He takes it and gulps a few times, rolls over on his back and lets his paws loll.

The house is still.

“And?”

Warren answers without opening his eyes or moving. “And what?”

“Did you guys have a good discussion on blogging and ethics?”

“Well, no, not so much. It was pretty obvious that the bloggers all hated this one other blogger, Tony?



He has a blog that pretty much smears any and everyone, though he calls it a joke blog. I don’t think any of the other bloggers thought it was funny. I’m guessing it’s like a wanna-be drudge, but without the meat, you know? I looked at his stuff this afternoon when I got back and it’s all ‘oh, I’m so wonderful and the rest of you retards are so pathetic come and praise me.’ He’s very impressed with himself the way a egotistical but bright teenager might be.”

“I’d heard that about him but have not met him so don’t really know.”

“Oh, and you’re linked up, too. Let me have another hit.”

I re-stoke the bowl and fill our lungs.

“Yeah,” after I can speak again. “Dan mentioned that Tony linked me some time back, though he also made some cute remarks about all the hot babes I’m sleeping with over at The Pitch.”

Have you ever heard a Rotty laugh? It’s hideous, believe me - don’t try it at home.

“What’s in this stuff?…you don’t even KNOWanyone at The Pitch, much less are ‘doing’ any of them. So, any way, all these bloggers hate this guy’s guts but the overall conversation is kept at the mundane, polite surface level – what case law is vis a vis libel and slander for bloggers…”

“What is it?”

“Pretty much null, man. No one has seemed to nail a blogger for anything, legally. Some of it is the deep pockets thang –no blogger has any- some of it is the targets bloggers choose, almost all of whom are public figures, fair game all. some of it is the effort involved for a private citizen to go after someone who’s smearing them. My overall impression was it would be easier, and far cheaper, to just waylay the offending party and bust up one of his joints, maybe the fingers on his right hand. But that’s just me…”

I’m pulling up the ad guy’s site while Warren talks.

“Dood, says here you guys had “a lively event that examined the ethics of bloggers and the tremendous growth of bloggers and their impact on the news”. There’s also a picture of this Tony dood with Bill Grady - no other photos of the others?



Weird…hey it also says there were about 30 of you, not 40.”

“Well, it’s the Internets, man. No Change Management – it said 40 earlier this afternoon.”

“Oh, I believe you. What about the ‘lively’ part?”

“Man, humans’ ideas on lively are somewhat different than mine. I think chasing down and disemboweling a rabbit is a lively time. I don’t think this little seminar counted. In fact, this Tony is sad. He’s almost talented, you know? But whatever his skill at writing or ‘reporting’, he’s seemingly wasted it on annoying the shit out of everybody so much that, even if he wanted to play nice, no one would play with him. I’m not going to speculate on his upbringing –dood, he’s in his early 30s and lives at home for Pete’s sake- but he’s obviously emotionally stunted. Just sad. But, here’s the thing: no one really called him on being an asshat. Don’t get me wrong, all the other bloggers obviously thinkhe’s an asshat, just none of them decided to tell him so while he was sitting right there.”

“Sounds like a waste of time.”

“Nah, got to scarf down a buncha doughnuts, rested a bit before the walk back home, I put some faces to names and got to smell Christa’s legs. Also, the station has some regulatory obligation to host around a half dozen of these public forums a years, so they asked us for some ideas. I keep thinking a symposium on neutering/spaying might be nice. Though…”

“What?”

“Kinda wish that well hell gal had been there.”



“Dood, you are SO a dog. Another hit?”

Thanks, Doc!