Big Mouths? Takes One to Know One

Dr. Laura took on Craig Smith and the the now-defunct Santa Barbara Newsroom today like her buddy Wendy had won the war.

Here's a mean-spirited snippet to give you an idea of how that went over:

Where is Sara McCune's check? She was vocal enough about being willing to pay tens of millions of dollars to buy the News-Press, but she wasn't willing to put up the hundreds of thousands to keep its so-called substitute afloat.

What lazy, cheap, power-hungry hypocrites.

I think News-Press management sees the writing on the wall and that the August 14th court date does not bode well according to their many, many legal consultants. Dr. Laura should remember that opinion is opinion but that a wall between the owner of the News-Press and her columns is worth more than whatever Wendy could pay her.

Gay Activists and Leftist Reporters at Fault!

Here we go. The restoration of Dr. Laura has begun. A recent blog entry over at Citizen Journalism Today says gay activists put up the images on Deryk Schlessinger's MySpace page and somehow ties Jerry Roberts to the issue via a reporter at the Salt Lake City Tribune and a News-Press staff report? How much was this blogger paid? These kind of posts give bloggers a bad name. Not because I don't agree with them but because they didn't do their homework.

Interestingly enough -- the above blogger's reference to a "front page story" was likely one of the free commentaries one our citizen stringers calls Wendy's Greatest Hits. Although the page describes itself as providing "recent" commentaries" -- it's hard not to notice that only the ones with damage control written all over them make the list. If you are looking for the cabalistic conspiracy (is that a Colbert-ism?) -- you will find it there.

Paparazzi Sites and Dr. Laura

I've been wondering why Dr. Laura, who so often is a cheerleader for personal responsibility, has apparently left the News-Press for good. I am not so naive to think that local, public pressure from this and other blogs would have had any effect at all as so many of us are anonymous (even though Dr. Laura announced her column in the News-Press through an anonymous blog host).

I figured it out when my sister from out-of-state, who does not know I am SDLG, sent me the following about Dr. Laura's son Deryk and asked what was going on back in SB. When you have made the paparazzi-style sites -- your future becomes very uncertain. It seems this blogger contacted the Army and got a Lt. Colonel to say that the MySpace page was "very disturbing".

Dr. Laura's PR reps are still standing by their initial contention that the MySpace page could be fake -- of course it could, but is it? It seems the burden of proof would sit with Deryk to prove that it wasn't....I have to say I wouldn't want to be Dr. Laura right now. What would you say to your son who is otherwise serving our country? For this kind of thing -- the fact that he is serving our country is not a large enough cloak of invisibility, but I wonder if this will go any further than it has.

Worker Bee Shuts Down Sunday Funnies

This showed up in a comment in case any of you were wondering what happened to Worker Bee's blog on Dr. Laura (a small yabbadabbadoo edit is included -- sorry about that WB!):

I took down the Sunday Funnies because truthfully I just don't want to read Laura Shlessinger's column ever again or ever think about her. It was fun while it lasted, and I wish there were 25 hours in the day to make fun of Laura, but to make fun of her you actual have to absorb and consider her mind numbing thoughts.

I took it down entirely to take away the temptation of giving that woman the time of day just to crack some jokes. It's not worth it. Obviously she says outrageous things because she knows it will tick some people off and she welcomes the rumbling because it helps her book sales, etc. I just don't want to contribute.

That said, in the privacy of my own home, I will continue to persue my new hobby of pasting Mr. Yuck stickers over pictures of YABBADABBADOO. Thank you.

Dr. Laura Mirrors TKA on Teamster Hit Piece

First of all, this post marks over 500 posts on BlogaBarbara since we began just a few years ago. Another milestone! As always, I appreciate all of your support and readership.

In Dr. Laura's column this morning, she said she was waiting by the phone for Santa Barbara Newsroom to call her about syndicating her column so THEY could demonstrate a lack of bias. She has had an open invitation to do that with me for over a month and has failed to take action! I've been hitting refresh on my email client for weeks! As always, you are free to a post at any time Dr. Laura -- and for that matter so are your friends at De la Guerra Plaza.

She then says she is opposed to unions. Again, she made the same rather intentional mistake Travis Armstrong did and tried to turn the United Food and Commercial Workers at our grocery stores into the big bad Teamsters when they are a really different union. Just like Armstrong, she invoked the image of a union eating up all they could. Here's an excerpt -- does anyone have an original thought or do any fact checking over there?

Union demands and threats to destroy business functions is bullying at best, extortion at worst.

So, starting a new "newspaper" is a reasonable solution for the group of folks who quit over claims of bias or were fired for allegedly undermining the workings of the News-Press. However, complaining about "bias" and then being virtually owned by a union is so blatantly hypocritical that I don't have to comment further.

Doesn't that sound like an editorial from a few weeks ago -- I guess their PR folks have had their "One Voice" speech with them and this does not indicate bias. Hmmmm. The News-Press is acting much more like Big Brother than the Teamsters, Dr. Laura! Finally, isn't it extortion to refuse to give someone their job and back pay after a court decision just because you think they were wrong?

Dr. Laura Kicks It Up A Notch

Not willing to let a sleeping dog lie, "Dr." Laura has taken on local blogs and anonymity on the Interent again today:

My second boycott is all blogs and such which permit anonymous postings. For example, go to www.independent.com and see for yourself how, under the darkness of anonymity, people feel free to give "opinions" that often go right over the edge into slander and downright meanness. Same with the Santa Barbara blogs which spend most of their time and space on attacking everyone associated with the Santa Barbara News-Press.

I got free publicity last Sunday, and The Santa Barbara Media Blog got free publicity today. Should we be happy to be in the same company as the hit tv show Law and Order? I thought that was so yesterday...

That being said, my offer to allow her a community post on BlogaBarbara still stands. Rather than not allowing me to respond to her columns by not getting my side of the story, why not get instant feedback from all of us? I will even promise to not allow any comments that aren't directly about the subject matter, use invective or name calling, etc.

Dr. Laura Cries Foul

Many thanks to several of our faithful readers for passing on Dr. Laura's column this morning. I will not include the full text here as the Santa Barbara News-Press has made it clear that reprinting articles is something they will not support. If you are a subscriber, you can read it in the newspaper or online...

In the article, Dr. Laura described my March 6th post on the subpoena made to Google and says that "writing commentary without full personal attribution did not demonstrate character, courage and conscience". She went on to ask why her comment wasn't published and wonders openly why this happened.

As is common with News-Press opinion columns, I wasn't contacted by Dr. Laura for my side of the story or for an explanation as to why her comment was not published. I am sure that many of you have had similar instances of this with Mr. Armstrong as well. While Dr. Laura may think that comments on a "media outlet" should be worth standing behind -- so should columns printed in the newspaper. Writing about someone without getting their side of the story, basically not doing your homeowrk -- is not living up to high jouralistic standards to which journalists like her supposedly aspire.

My explanation for not publishing her comment is that currently Ampersand Publishing has several subpoenas that they have issued related to BlogaBarbara. Why would I want to assume Dr. Laura was who she said she was in commenting on this post? Considering the state of litigation those of us that are News-Press critics live in these days, why would I want to risk her comment being made by just about anyone? Her celebrity status affords a level of caution in this situation that I believe is warranted. If she really wanted to offer her opinion, it might have made more sense to email me.

Of all people, Dr. Laura should realize the position I was in considering that she works for Ampersand Publishing and that she is a columnist who ignites opposition on a wide variety of topiics.

I've offered space to News-Press management on BlogaBarbara several times and have not been taken up on my offer. If Dr. Laura would like to offer a community post to be published, I would be happy to offer her thoughts for discussion in our community. She could simply email me at saradelaguerra@yahoo.com with a verifiable email address -- and I would be happy to afford her that opportunity. I would hope in the future, she would do the same and check her source's viewpoint prior to writing about them.