Again frustrating folks who believe she should be teaching journalism, Jessica McBride has taken down a passel of, admittedly, rather embarrassing posts on her blog without explanation.
Whallah!
So the casual reader no longer will be able to read her accusations that WTMJ's decision to replace her with Dennis Miller indicated the station was going wobbly on conservatism. Or that she was contemplating suing the Journal Sentinel. Or her fan mail.
Did she figure out attacking not one, but two former employers was not a shrewd move in pursuing future employment? Did her buddy Charlie Sykes suggest she was undermining the cause by attacking WTMJ's bonafides? Did WTMJ management contact her regarding her characterization of her final conversations with them?
The Brawler has no idea. But he would suggest that she rename her site mcbridememoryhole.
These posts from the Brawler archives (the good people at Whallah! have more) give a sense of what is now missing from a blog that considers it the height of humor to superimpose Rosie O'Donnell's face on the body of an al-Qaida terrorist. But if you try to click through to the links in these posts, sadly all you'll get is "page not found."
In any event, this mass, unexplained purge of troublesome posts demonstrates Jessica has truly jumped the shark -- and really should not be teaching a profession in which accountability is paramount. In which what you write matters. While this may be hard for longtime Brawler readers to accept, the Brawler will no longer be commentating on Ms. McBride.
Really, shouldn't we all move on?
UPDATE: Slumming, Folkbum drops by and in comments leaves a link to one of his favorite deleted -- but cached -- posts. The Brawler concurs. "Public Relations 101" is a classic, canonical even. ]
UPDATE II: Via the tireless folks at Whallah, we learn that Jessica has put the posts back up. Meanwhile, in a typically riveting Waukesha Freeman column she gives a Cliff's Notes version of how WTMJ persecuted her for her conservative stance as opposed to her flatiline ratings.
This one (courtesy of the Google Cache) was my favorite:
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:9e_m-_aqR_4J:mcbridemediamatters.blogspot.com/2007/05/pr-101.html+site:mcbridemediamatters.blogspot.com+cuprisin+%22i+dare+you%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
Posted by: folkbum | May 28, 2007 at 04:07 PM
I was dumbfounded to read Jessica's rant, PR101A-D! I can just see her madly typing away at 3am. Sad. Very sad. I doubt Sykes would advise Jessica to take that down. Sykes is probably creating distance from Jessica as she digs her own hole. (OK, that's my PR101 suggestion for Sykes: Stay away from McBride. She is going a little nuts.)Perhaps her husband, a lawyer, suggested she do a heavy duty edit of her writing so she doesn't lose some MORE family income. Although I beg UWM to find someone much more qualified to shape young minds. FYI--Her syllabus is filled with typos and she talks about herself more than anything in class! (Ask anyone at the UWM Post who had to endure her.) And, as we all know, that's the least of it.
Posted by: Missy | May 29, 2007 at 05:20 AM
After reading her suggestion to contact Tom Parker at WTMJ radio, I sent a note thanking him for excising her show and questioning the logic behind putting her on the airwaves to begin with. Tom responded and asked that I listen to the Miller show and report back. I hope he doesn't hold his breath.
Posted by: HugoC | May 29, 2007 at 08:54 AM
Hehe, Jessica as a journalism teacher is a joke. If you go to www.frontpagemilwaukee.com you'll see the value of the journalism department at UMW. Last I checked, paragraphs were intended to be longer than a sentence in length. Additionally, when writers for this webpage respond to comments made by other posters they are too chicken to use their real name rather than an alias, (that means you "bgkob" Kyle O'Boyle). What I find most entertaining about these kid journalists is their ever-loving devotion to using webpages as source documents rather than real books or articles written by real newspapers to support their pathetic arguments.
Posted by: Colin, | May 29, 2007 at 09:22 PM