The Fourth Estate

On a recent trip to Flavortown (and you'll have to dig pretty deep into the archives of American advertising to find out where that is), an idea came to me for a parody that, by my standards, was downright fresh and new. After struggling with it for hoursnhoursnhours, though, it's turned out, as usual, different from how it began. As the Master said, "When exigence of rhyme compels . . ." Once I started trying to shoehorn thoughts into the melody, the whole superstructure collapsed.

The idea, you see, was to compare the MSM to blogs, poking as much fun as possible at the former (the penultimate line was the first line written, you see).

In the end, most of the complaints turned out to be pretty shopworn. Valid, mind you; but shopworn. Still, here's the roughest of roughs, hot off the press. It's to the tune of Irving Berlin's earthshaking hit of 1911, Alexander's Ragtime Band (verse and chorus), and if you need a midi link to that, then you're no American, as far as I'm concerned.

Stop the presses! Stop the presses!. Seen the paper? Well, take a gander.
Sleazy pieces, press releases—incivility—imbecility;
Innuendo in crescendo: that’s the substance of Alexander's
Scumbag news rag—it’s a Beacon of Truth!

You oughta buy, you oughta try Alexander’s small-time rag.
The yellow press is under stress—see our circulation sag.
Watch The Daily Bugle sell bits of Michael Jackson porn,
Au naturel as the day that he was born—
Ain’t he enough to make you gag? (The scalawag!)
We just report—we don’t distort. (On occasion, though, we brag.)
We’re very deft at leaning left, but we sometimes wave the flag.
Unless you want the Mainstream Media replaced by weblogs,
Ya better buy, ya better try Alexander’s small-time rag!

Lyric © 2005 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

If I stopped to criticize each errant syllable of this turkey, I'd be here all night. Perhaps the thing will clean itself up in the days to come.