What's In A Name?

Shakespeare says a Rose by any other name would smell as sweet. But words do have meaning.

What with the traditional media outlets lagging well behind the upstarts in breaking stories in the last month or so (i.e. Town Halls, Tea Parties, Van Jones, the NEA hi-jinks, ACORN) and the blogosphere is now casting around for a new name for the "Main Stream Media." Clearly, if one is not getting breaking news from CNN, NBC, ABC and the New York Times, for example, they aren't really all that , uh, main stream.

Now, there are some alternatives that have been in use for awhile, like Limbaugh's "Drive-By Media" and Hannity's "Obama Mania Media." Glen Beck has suggested "Fringe Media" and Michelle Malkin came up with "Ostrich Media" when ABC's anchor-man Charlie Gibson claimed on Tuesday that he hadn't even heard of the ACORN story. That was four days after the Census Bureau had cut ties with the organization because of the exploding scandal. (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used this tactic TWO DAYS LATER, but to be fair, she isn't a trained journalist.)

Me, I favor Ace of Spades' The Past-Tense Media. First, because it's cute. Second because it's accurate. And Third, because of a claim my husband always used to make that he could predict the past.