This is really starting to get old

Tiger escapes enclosure at Jungle Island

He's the most famous golfer in the world, rich beyond belief, and he can't just stay out of the news, can he?

Wha? Not that Tiger? Never mind.

Something occurred to me

while reading this post:

Columbia University Graduate School of The Internet

Now, the post itself I think is very much on target about the need to train journalists properly for the brave new world of the internets. And while I suspect I know Mr. Rosenblum's political leanings, I don't know them for certain and they're tangential to my issue.

He says:

The school was founded by a rogue businessman, Joseph Pulitzer. He was the Rupert Murdoch of his day. He tried to expurgate his many sins by building the school. Instead, he compounded them. He succeeded in creating a factory for ‘good employees’, but he infantalized an entire industry.

The graduates of the school long to be good employees - to work for The New York Times or The Washington Post or NBC News or CNN...

The report on the Future of American Journalism was written by two lifetime employees. Leonard Downie Jr., spent a lifetime at The Washington Post, as an employee. He rose to be Executive Editor but he still got that weekly paycheck. Michael Schudson is a lifetime academic. He also has spent his life getting that printed paycheck every week.

Nice guys though they are, they are hardly the right people to ask to figure out the future of journalism. What they have been bred to do for a lifetime is to figure out where the next paycheck is going to come from. And that is what they came up with in their report. Pretty much devoid of any other ideas, they came up with ‘ask the goverment or some foundations to write more checks’.

I don't have an argument with his primary point, but I am wondering about this disdain for people collecting paychecks. This is not the first time I'm seeing this around - there was an episode of Miami Ink a while back with a young woman (flat out gorgeous, by the way) getting a tattoo of a robot to symbolize her father's "enslavement to corporate America". She was determined to avoid ever working a "real job." There are other examples.

What's bothering me is this idea that there's something wrong with going to a "regular job" and collecting a paycheck. Perhaps the world does need Joseph Pulitzers and Bill Paleys, but we can't all be at that level. None of the big time movers would ever have gotten anywhere without the paycheck collecting shmoes working for them. That's not exactly what journalism (or any field, except maybe Hollywood) needs - everybody's a CEO, nobody does the grunt work?

This bothers me more coming from liberals (as I suspect Mr. Rosenblum is) only because they pride themselves on their support for the working people of this nation. But sneering at people who collect paychecks is not terribly supportive. Would I like to be a chief instead of an Indian (scusi - Native American non-leadership voluntary tribal participant)? Sure, but I don't have the ideas and I don't really want to work that hard. I've chosen to prioritize family and personal life over the commitment to work that being a chief requires.

This is not just liberals, by the way, though I think it's more common there. It's a curse of the elite and the hyper-driven to think there's failure in the ordinary. Not necessarily a bad thing - great advances in every aspect of life require the kinds of people who won't settle for the ordinary. But it's awfully arrogant to sit back and write off the paycheck takers as failures. A lot of us do things that allow the hyper types to do what they do in comfort, safety, and freedom.

A headline question

Here, from the AP (via Yahoo), a note about the controversy surrounding the President's comments about Kanye West:

President's opinion of Kanye West sparks debate

So standards of journalism are at issue - reporting something that should have been off the record. A fair enough discussion, I guess.

But to my question - how come none of these people give a damn that journalistic standards are already in the toilet? Objectivity, straight reporting, and nonpartisanship have disappeared from the field for all I can tell. We're left with opinion masquerading as news and people in the tank for one side of the political divide pretending to be objective.

Out of curiosity, why is none of that as important as the President referring off mike to someone as a jackass? Particularly when that person in fact behaved like a jackass?

Just asking.

More conferencing

Day 2 of the official show. Some decent presentations today, even the one I walked out of to call in to a conference call that never happened. So I went back in & heard the rest of what they had to say (for the record, it was about using online video for distance learning.)

I have to admit I'm both excited and depressed by what I learned. Excited because there are some really smart people out there doing really cool things with online media. Depressed because not only am I not doing it, but we're in many ways just barely keeping up.

Plus all of these people have jobs and titles that I would like to have. Whatever. It was a good conference, I actually talked to a lot of people (kind of unusual for me with people I don't know), and tomorrow it's back to reality.

Which includes a major overhaul to a system that happened today and does not seem to be working properly. But that's likely to be another blogpost.

The Pulitzers are Awarded!

And nobody cares:

Las Vegas Sun wins Pulitzer, and NY Times gets 5

I dunno - I kinda love the sad, pathetic idea of awarding prestigious prizes to an industry that's tottering in senility and incontinence into the grave.

Kinda like winning the Beauty Pageant on the Titanic, dontcha think?

Just when I think I'm done

look what the AP provides as fodder:

NJ girl, 14, arrested after posting nude pics

Why is it some people feel the need to prosecute anything they can't manage intelligently? What's missing here is not legal action, but parenting. What's also missing is a sense of shame and propriety among people.

A society that sexualizes everything cannot, should not be surprised when children (and 14 year olds are children in my book) copy what they see. Musicians, politicians, celebrities, whatever - all sell sex. They sell it to young and old, but older people should be able to handle the messages and not get screwed up.

As long as this continues, children will observe, imbibe, and copy what these losers do. This is not something to prosecute - it's something to correct, and that's a parent's job.

So?

Headline in Newsday the other day:

Lawsuit: My husband's brain is missing

All around the world I can hear billions of wives saying "Yeah? Join the club, sister."

Why, specifically

I don't care for a certain type of liberal, particularly in the celebrity arena. I can't find a link anywhere, so treat everything in this post as "alleged."

As I saw it the other day, and Rush Limbaugh mentioned a few minutes ago, actress/commedienne Sandra Bernhard reportedly warned VP candidate Sarah Palin not to come to New York, or Ms. Bernhard would have "several of her big black brothers gang-rape" Ms. Palin.

Leaving aside Ms. Bernhard's reputation as an in your face, on the edge humorist, there are many reasons why any self-respecting person should be grossly offended by such a statement. Let me suggest a few:

• It suggests Ms. Palin should be raped
• It suggests Ms. Bernhard would like to see that happen, and would aid it happening
• It suggests that black people would be doing the raping

The issues:

• Women, especially liberal women, have for a very long time decried rape as top on the list of worst crimes men can commit
• Any woman who would recommend such an idea should, by most lights, be shredded by the usual suspects in the feminist movement
• The connotation of black men raping white women is one of the oldest and most racially charged canards in the book
  

Now, I don't need to point out that had this come from a conservative comedian this would be all over the place. I accept that this is the media universe we live in, and such statements by a liberal never see the light of day. Probably not a bad thing - normal people shouldn't be forced to read about this sort of stupidity over their morning coffee.

But this is why I hate these celebrities - the logic behind such a pronouncement (if there is any) is beyond twisted, it's repugnant. Hate Sarah Palin, knock yourself out. Campaign to have her defeated. Vote against her. Attack her policies as mean, unfair to poor people, whatever. But this sort of thing is not funny, clever, intelligent, or remotely mature. As long as this sort of thing is acceptable to liberals in public or private, I will consider it both morally and intellectually bankrupt as a political philosophy.

From the too easy department

Poll: Obama tops McCain as football-watching buddy

Yes, but we're not electing a football watching buddy - we're electing a president. I would be happy to sit & watch a game with Obama, but that's not quite the same as asking him to run the free world.

To the AP: Seriously, boys & girls - if you're going to drop crap like this up there, so easy that even I can respond with a takedown, you probably should find another line of work.

I'm confused

moreso than usual, anyway, by the following article:



Gov. Mom



So the whole point of the Post's take on this interesting question is that there's a question about the correctness of Palin's choice. The author writes

"Although a clear majority of mothers today are in the workforce, studies show that the pendulum has swung back, and most are skeptical about mothers working full time; they see part-time jobs as the ideal."

So, did I miss something in the last 40+ years of feminist theory? I thought the whole point of being a liberated woman in the modern age was that you not only could, but should do it all. Anyone who questioned a woman's ability to do both her family job and her paid job (and both equally well, incidentally) was a sexist pig looking to keep women barefoot, pregnant, subservient, etc. So now we have a perfect example of the feminist ideal - running a family and a state - and we have to raise the issue of whether or not she's qualified to do both? And ask if it's the right thing to do to her family?



I for one believe in two things. First, if at all possible, a parent should stay home with their kids. I happen to think it's better for the mother to do, but we all knew I was a Neanderthal already. No one raises your kids the way you do, and if you can afford it, better to have a parent home. Second, since that's not always possible, I believe people should acknowledge that something has to give. You can't be a superstar mom and a superstar employee and dedicate equal time to both. It's not possible to do it without sacrificing something, and that's the calculus every family faces. You shortchange work or your family when you try and do both, and that's something that has to be recognized (though not necessarily changed - people survive all kinds of rough childhoods.)



But I remain confused about the sudden change of rhetoric. When Hillary Clinton is running, it's a historic moment to show women have finally arrived. When Sarah Palin runs, it's time to see if a woman is properly balancing her priorities. This should be the pinnacle of the ideal of having it all, and instead it's something to worry about. You don't suppose the party of the woman in question has anything to do with the reporting, do you?

So here's my Question,

assuming Mr. Hassett is correct in the following article:



Democrats Offer Lesson in Misleading on Taxes



Where is the AP's retraction? I see no reason to doubt Hassett, who I assume has actually read the report in question, whereas the AP has a much less dependable track record. On the face of it, when I heard the original news story my first assumption was that the story had it wrong. Anytime you say 90% of anything chances are good it's an exaggeration; when you suggest that the country's biggest taxpayers pay no taxes at all, most rational people with even a slight understanding of economics have to think something's screwy.



I take Hassett's illustrations to heart - measuring GE in the same bucket as the Hot Dog vendors is by definition ridiculous; add to that the financial sense of reporting your earnings as wages rather than profit, and it all starts to make sense. So I repeat the question - where is the banner retraction to replace the banner headlines about corporations paying no taxes? Mr. Clemens' remark about lies, damned lies, etc. seems appropriate here.



So a word to all of us - take what you read with the appropriate grain of salt; in the case of the AP, I recommend a grain the size of the moon.

Your Mainstream Media

finding that crucial hidden demographic:



100-year-old Americans see election 2008 as historic



Shall we call this Gen Willard Scott?

Why I don't trust Experts

Via Yahoo/AP:



Experts: Years before dollar regains value, prestige worldwide



Conspicuously missing from the story is the length of time it took the dollar to slide. Look, I don't understand anything about economics. A dollar is still a dollar, though I guess it buys less and that makes it weak. Either way, what'd it take for us to go from gangbusters to a weak dollar? Six months?



Where, precisely, is it written that it will take years to come back? Things can turn up as quickly as they turn down, and there's no guarantee that Europe's economic problems (which I assume are varied) might not cause similar problems for the Euro.



At the end of it all, like the weathermen and the global warming crowd, too much of this is guesswork for my taste. They all have pet theories they've been waiting years to see turn real, and now that a down cycle has finally hit they're crowing about how right they are. I have no idea why they love doom & gloom so much, other than it's Bush's fault. My only actual concern is if one of the Democrats gets elected, these central planning ouija-board pundits might actually be in a position to ruin the economy.



In which case they're correct - it will take years to regain prosperity.

An American Hero

Pilot of plane that dropped A-bomb dies



Oh, I know all the AP wants to talk about is the suffering the bomb did, and I see an implication of callousness in Tibbets from the author. But anybody who knows a damn thing about war in general, WWII, and the Japanese behavior prior to and during the war understands that the bomb was frankly the lesser of two evils.



There's no minimizing of the suffering here, but let's get real - how would the Japanese civilians have fared during a genuine invasion of the Home Islands? How many Allied troops would have been killed? How long would it have dragged on? Add to that Japanese behavior towards civilians in Manchuria, Korea, Burma, etc., and it's a little hard for me to to see moral injustice on the part of the US.



Rest in Peace, General.

Laugh of the Day

Dan Rather sues CBS, Viacom for $70M



Ole' Dan thinks he got the shaft from CBS for their "intentional mishandling" of the aftermath of the story he chose to run, despite the holes in it the size of a National Guard jet.



What's the Frequency, Kenneth, indeed.

Science!

Toddler Study Proves Humans Outsmart Apes



"In other Sciency-type stuff, Apes clearly still lead by a wide margin of intelligence over reporters and headline writers."

Bias? What Bias?

So National Review has been making note today of an incident in the House last night where a vote was gaveled, meaning, I take it, that it is final. The Dem in charge thought it was a tie, when in fact it was passed. They then held the vote open so that enough people could switch their votes to the Nay side.




Republicans Angry Over House Vote



So the problem is it took me almost ten minutes to find a story about it in the mainstream media. Including the site I finally dug it up on, Fox News. Elsewhere, I get the standard fodder of "Administration screws up" "Gonzales must go" and "Bush Lied, People Died." But a mention of a flagrant violation of the rules by Democrats? Not a peep.



Leaving aside the particular importance of this vote, which appears to have been procedural rather than substantive, I can find no clearer demonstration of the crap that politicians play. Did the guy screw up and gavel too soon? Sure. Had he said "my bad - I screwed up, and I won't do it again" - no big deal. But to actively change the vote after? Criminal in my estimation, and worthier of censure than anything I've seen the libs claim about the administration.



Why? Because, for good or ill, there are supposed to be rules. They can be gamed, and bent, but they should not be broken in such a cavalier and clearly partisan fashion. Your elected government and mine is a cesspool of scheming dishonesty, and I'm embarrassed to be represented by such filth.



The press is aiding and abetting this kind of behavior, and they wonder why they are ranked so low on the trustworthy scale. Yes, this is a small issue. But you learn a lot more about people by how they handle the little things than how they manage the larger issues.

A Paean

to irrelevance:



Fast amateurs give ad makers hits and headaches



If you read the story through, several things become apparent. First, several companies including Pepsi, are allowing their consumers to produce their advertising for them. Hence, the expensive advertising firms they're paying bajillions to are getting suckers customers to do their work for them. Meaning someone, somewhere, is going to realize that it's pointless to spend those bajillions when they can have those same suckers customers volunteer to do it.



Another thing I noticed is that, as usual, the corporate types just don't get it. There's talk of mad scrambles to buy up media & technology companies to handle this kind of marketing. But anything done in a scramble is usually a bad idea - you haven't thought through the consequences of the mergers, or the needs, or how you're going to make it work. An ounce of strategic planning is worth a pound of edgy new media.



Finally, did these yokels really get to go all the way to Cannes to sit through dopey seminars? How the heck did they explain this one to the bean counters and get away with it? "Uh, yeah, Frank, I'm going to a conference on New Media and advertising - I'm gonna need a speedo and a wine budget for this trip. Plus a suntan lotion allowance." I am definitely going to the wrong conferences.



One dopey Reuters article does not necessarily a trend make. Regular ad firms will continue to swindle willing corporations out of millions to write and produce ads that make you want to put a sledgehammer through the TV (yes, I am talking to you, the 1800 Sleepy's folks and the creator of every car commercial ever filmed). But I think there's something happening here, and I think the ad folks should start thinking about this phenomenon in a methodical, intelligent way if they want to still mean anything to anyone but themselves.



Or they'll just keep churning out crap - what do I know?

Too good

I have a beef with the media, no question about it. I live for the times when their self-parodying existence turns around and smacks them in the face with a juicy piece of karmic response for the rest of us to enjoy. A little schadenfreude is not a bad thing, huh?



On the other hand, once in a while I feel a small amount of pity for journalists. Not the Katie Courics or Dan Rathers of the world (and don't think I only have a beef with CBS, they're just the convenient punching bags) to be sure, but the working stiffs who actually try and do their jobs with decency. Perhaps occasionally there's even a bit of integrity, hmmmm?



So that makes this story my rare example of sympathy for the fourth estate:



Kiss Me, Katie

Fairy tales can come true. Why, they can even win you an award from Dallas' less-than-vigilant press club.



The story is amazing - how a person with enough chutzpah can hoodwink hundreds of people and create a life that never really existed. I don't feel that bad for the people who hired her or the Board Members who let her do her own thing - they got suckered, and some of them should have been more vigilant. But I do feel bad for the people who entered their work for the awards. They worked hard on their stories, and deserved a real chance to be acknowledged for their work.



Give it a read - it's quite a tale. (And hat tip to the Corner for the link.)

Just as I was thinking

there wasn't anything to blog about, a gift from the fourth estate:



Fox reality show roils Texas town



Here's what I consider the critical part of the story:

"One of the last sacred grounds of integrity in local television is the local newsroom, so I guess I would say I'm disappointed to see a station, much less one in our own community, that has evidently sold its integrity," said Brad Streit, vp and GM for KLTV-TV, the ABC affiliate in Tyler.



Adds KETK-TV GM Mike DeLier of the NBC affiliate: "I see this as a stunt, and it's a self-admitted stunt and not a journalistic endeavor."



Al Tompkins, broadcast group leader for the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., is more blunt: "It devalues the work of real journalists who are trying to do real work. It doesn't do anything to help the reputation of journalists there and around the world."

No one, I repeat no one, but a group of journalists could refer to integrity, selling out, and journalism in the same breath without laughing hysterically. I give the GM of the participating station credit - he acknowledges the tawdriness of his profession, and is being honest. The rest of them just demonstrate the hackdom that is now their bread & butter. I suspect the other GMs are just mad they didn't think of it first.



In its own peculiar way, this restores my faith in America just a little.