Friday Media Roundup

Stuff I've read, watched, or listened to that's good enough to recommend.

Yeasayer / "2080" (music): Yeasayer is a difficult band to describe, which is a good thing. I can't imagine anyone agreeing with this, but "2080" reminds me of music that would play in a movie about an optimistic, post-apocalyptic future.

The whole album has an aura of oddly familiar strangeness. It's like the music skipped a few stages of evolution, so it's difficult to see where it came from, but it's still recognizable enough to enjoy.

How about this: (World Music)^2 ? I give up. Great band, regardless.

Heroes (TV): I avoided watching the show until recently because the premise--ordinary people discover latent superpowers and try to avert a world disaster--sounded bland. The execution is excellent though. The show's strength is its constant diet of new surprises and resolutions. It's almost like the anti-Lost--something significant is revealed in every episode, to the point that I don't see how they maintain the pace for more than a few seasons.


The Real All-Americans (book): I'm not a huge sports fan, but I found Sally Jenkins' book on how Native Americans were integral to the development of collegiate football fascinating. I'm surprised I never heard of Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an experiment in assimilating Native Americans by a well-meaning but perhaps misguided army officer, or knew that it was the source for a lot of what we now consider basic parts of football, like the forward pass,
reverses, and training dummies.

The book also brought light to some names I only heard in passing, like Jim Thorpe and Pop Warner. It's worth checking out from the library or buying for anyone with an interest in sports history.

Our Malined Friend

I feel sorry for the toilet seat. It's always the comparison point for grossness.

Every few months there's a story on how Everyday Object X has more bacteria than a toilet seat. "Average keyboard has more bacteria than a toilet seat." "Calling Dr. Gross--mobile phone has more bacteria than a toilet seat." "Why don't you have your baby lick a toilet? Pacifiers have more bacteria than gas station commode."

If there are so many objects more disgusting than a toilet seat, maybe it's time to back off the insults to our porcelain friend. It's doing something right. It is beating our cell phones in the clean contest, and I don't know about you, but I don't poop on my cell phone.

What would I use as a substitute? A far question to ask. If I were a scientist releasing a meaningless study because my company's PR department wants to generate publicity from a media machine that hungers for attention-grabbing stories that require almost no research or effort to report, I'd....well, actually, I'd kill myself, because my life would be a hollow shell, empty of a long-forgotten dream to do something meaningful.

Or...I would use an object that no one would suspect harbors bacteria, and give people two things to fret about. "Office keyboards have more bacteria than corn!" What? Corn has bacteria?

Google Trends

Hey, lazy reporters!

Need evidence to support the conclusion you had before you started writing your political horse race piece? Visit Google Trends. It tracks search engine traffic and news references for popular words and phrases.

Google Trends is flexible enough to accommodate a wide-variety of pre-conceived ideas. Isn't it a shame how people care more about celebrities than politicians? Just search for "Paris Hilton, Hillary Clinton." Oops! Hillary got more news references. Better revise the search: "Paris Hilton, Senator Brownback." There we go!

Hey, how does a goat fare against the three main Democratic presidential candidates? Hoo hoo hoo! Politics is silly.

Google Trends is also useful when planning the news cycle during the slow summer months. Should we go with Summer of the Shark, or Summer of the Monkey? Let's check with America first.

Maybe It's Okay To Make an Ass Out of You and Me on This One

I hate to criticize the media for not being assumptive. In the race to report news, media outlets often gloss over details, report hearsay as fact, and broadcast unverified information rather than take the time to analyze it first.

But how do you allegedly drive a car through a street festival and injure 43 people? The only doubt is whether to call it a street festival or an open market. (I suggest using The Clown Rule).

If you missed the story, I'm referring to an incident that happened last Sunday in SE D.C. No one died, so the article was already off the front page of The Washington Post by Monday night. How many people do you have to maim nowadays to get some staying power? I find it a small miracle that no one died, but there's little information on what people did during and after the situation to avoid casualties.

The story resurfaced briefly today. The police department stated that the driver was a single Mom, high on crack, with her 7-year-old daughter in the back seat. This item got almost as much attention as the original incident. As it should. It's bad enough to get hit by a car, but who wants to get run over by a stereotype? That's no way to die.

FOX News sent over a camera crew after this development. Their latest report states that when the car finally crashed, a group of Mexicans popped out of the trunk and started singing La Cucaracha ("La Cucaracha" is Spanish for "We don't actually sing this song. It sucks."). They released a correction soon after the initial report. They meant to say allegedly.

I LOVE THE MEDIA!!!!

INTERNET NEWS ROX. (1)

(1) Source: Wikipedia

Worst Idea Ever

At least for 2006.

"O.J. Simpson: If I Did It, Here's How It Happened"

The follow-up interview: "If I did it, and happened to videotape it, here's what the videotape would look like."

Headline...

Bear attack victim loved nature, hated bears, dad says
Okay, I added the "hated bears" part.

This was on the front page of Yahoo. I think they're testing the waters for Summer of the Bear.

From Yahoo's Front Page.

Will Super Bowl XL live up to its name?

***

The deep questions are always the hardest to answer.

Will Super Bowl 143 live up to it's name? Gee, I don't know. It's hard to imagine anything surpassing the drama of Super Bowl 117. And don't get me started on the razzle dazzle in Superbowl 126: Part 2.

Here's a real question: Will Superbowl Best Mutha-Fucking Superbowl Ever Live Up To Its Name? That would be something I'd be genuinely curious about. But Superbowl what--35? 40? Not much of a name to live up to.

...

On the cover of a "special" edition of Newsweek:

AMERICA'S HOTTEST COLLEGES!

"Woo hoo! Show your tits, Princeton!"

"It's Colleges Gone Wild. [cue island music] You won't believe what these colleges will do to get your tuition money."

Dear Media

I know the war in Iraq, Social Security, and the national debt are important and all that. But let's talk about the real today: WHERE ARE THE SHARK ATTACKS?

We started off with two wonderful ones, right after each other. I ran out and bought a can of Wite-Out for my "Summer of the Shark 2001" shirt.

Then...nothing. It's been almost a whole week without a shark attack. What gives? I don't care if there haven't been any real shark attacks. Can't Wolf Blitzer strap on a dorsal fin and bite someone? And what is Tom Brokaw doing nowadays? I'll tell you what he should be doing: biting people in the ocean. Throw your former comrades a bone, Brokie.

Media, this is the people speaking: WE WANT MORE SHARK ATTACKS!

Shark Attack Update

Keep em coming, media! BOW DOWN TO THE POWER OF THE SHARK!!!

YEEEESSS!

Summer of the Shark is back!

We Regret The Error

- A picture caption on Page 1 Wednesday incorrectly identified a man on a bicycle as the reputed mob boss Joey "the Clown" Lombardo. In fact, the man's name is Stanley Swieton and he has no ties to organized crime. A story explaining the mistake is on Page 1 of today's Metro section.

(from the Chicago Tribune)

Stanley's name has the connotation of a man who would be very agitated about the mistake.

The State of Reporting Today

1.The news: Doomsayers Say Benedict Fits World End Prophecy

2. The research:" 'His reign will only last a few years at most. This signals that we are living in what may be the end of days as we know it,' said one Web Site entry by someone calling himself SmartBob."

3. The intellectually rigorous analysis: "The prophecy -- widely dismissed by scholars as a hoax -- is attributed to..." Yeah, that makes it all better.

I have a suggestion for Reuters. How about you change the headline to, "First Article Ever Written Without Speaking to a Single Person"?

If I knew all it took to write a wire service article was cobble together a bunch of quotes from people posting with fake names on different web sites, I would have become a reporter long ago. Heck, I am a reporter. I'm putting it on my resume. Have you ever posted a comment on Pancake City? You're a source! I hope you don't mind if I use you in my next article, "People on Web Page Comment on Shit".

And as for the doomsday people: how about this. We'll make a deal with you. Gather together and agree on one day, any day you want, for the doomsday to occur. Heck, pick a week. It's cool. But if that time passes and the four horsemen are still in the stable, then you have to shut the f--- up forever. Forever ever? Yes. I thought that was the deal in 2000, but here we are again.

You know, I hate Duke as much as anyone...

...but is this really the best poll for The Washington Post to run in terms of promoting good sportsmanship?



After making fun of Duke many times in my life, and several times on this blog, I have no authority to criticize someone else for fanning the anti-Duke flames. In fact, I may be a hypocrite in saying this. But besides the Teen Beat wording of the poll, it makes me uncomfortable that The Washington Post is actively encouraging the dislike of people, especially a non-professional player, J.J. Redick.

This is the type of poll I would expect to see on a blog or The Diamondback's web site (UMD's college newspaper). It seems out of character for a national newspaper.

Perhaps the WP could have used a better headline...

...about people's responses to the tsunami than this one:

Internet Sparks Flood of Donations

But let us be thankful that CNN is on the job to tell us the truly horrible part of this disaster.

So...

How many brown people have to die before it leads the local nightly news?

I know it's no "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop?", but it's important to me nonetheless.

The night the tsunami shattered coastal regions in Asia, the local news in D.C. did a story at 11:05. The estimated dead were at least 10,000. The top story: Some travelers were stranded at airports because, and this is really bizarre, lots of people travel around Christmas and snow continues to fall towards the ground, in spite of the fact that people are traveling for the Christmas holiday that very day.

Snow is a jerk. But will snow be a jerk in Washington D.C.? To Ronnie in the Weather Tower, a man who not only catalogued the daily weather stats but also pulled off the amazing stunt of commending viewers for bravely soldering on during the horribly frigid weather while almost-simultaneously expressing regret for the lack of snow this Christmas, a substance that, to the best of my knowledge, requires cold to form.

Then came the brown people. And, I kid you not, after describing the disaster and giving the death count, they, through an act of TV news wizardy that will put to shame any critic who ever said the news never sticks with a story, somehow, found a few stranded travelers in Sri Lanka and started talking about them.

The next night, same station, the disaster lead the newscast. At that point, the death toll had risen to at least 28,000. While that doesn't answer the original question, it provides a valuable clue.

Based on these two nights, the number of brown people that have to die to lead the local nightly news is between 10,000 and 28,000. Of course, this is assuming there isn't an obviously bigger story, like the President being assassinated or a Twinkie factory shutting down.

Personally, my gut feeling tells me the magic numbers are 18,000 brown people, 10,000 white people, and 3 Americans. Unless the Americans are in another country, where in that case it would take at least 5 killed by violent death, 12 by natural disaster, with an exception if there's a movie about the disaster coming out next week, like "Death Not Fun(nel)" or "I-cy Danger, I See France," and the media conglomerate that owns the local television station also owns the movie studio making the movie. Then the number is anyone's guess.

I Didn't Know Acceptance Was Controversial

This is almost beyond words. NBC and CBS are refusing to air an ad because it makes the "controversial" statement that turning people away from a church because they are gay is wrong.

It's a good thing Janet Jackson's nipple wasn't gay, or the villagers would have burnt the network down.

You can watch the horrifying ad here, and read about the networks' justification for rejecting the ad here.

Say It Ain't So, Post

I love The Washington Post. The paper isn't perfect by any means, but overall I think it's the best in the nation. They do a lot of thoughtful, original reporting and have the best online site in the business.

Most recently, I was impressed with their "debate referee" feature after the presidential debates, where they examined the veracity of the statements made by the two candidates. I read similar fact-check features by the other major newspapers, and the Post creamed them in terms of breadth and detail.

So it really disturbs me to read that their Executive Editor Leonard Downie is planning on dumbing down the newspaper.

The Post just wrapped up its annual self-evaluation meeting, an offsite event that includes top editors and executives from the paper's business side. This year's meeting focused on the paper's declining circulation -- now at 709,500 daily copies, down 10 percent over the past two years -- and the results of an extensive readership survey taken last summer.

In an effort to win new readers, Downie said Post reporters will be required to write shorter stories. The paper's design and copy editors will be given more authority to make room for more photographs and graphics.

The paper will undergo a redesign to make it easier for readers to find stories. It is considering filling the left-hand column of the front page with keys to stories elsewhere in the paper and other information readers say they want from the paper, which they often consider "too often too dull," Downie said.

"Newspapers should be fun and it should be fun to work at one," [No. 2 editor] Bennett said.

Someone needs to make a Washington Post Barbie.

• "Working at a newspaper is hard. Tee hee hee!"
• "Newspapers should be fun!"
• "Words are boring. I want to see pictures that mooooove!"

I welcome any change to make information easier to find and understand. But not at the expense of content. In many news articles on political issues, the reporter is bound by the requirements of the pyramid structure and even handedness. The interesting details tend to be buried later in the story, and I worry that they will one of the many things that will be sacrified in the name of new readers, who, evidentially, don't read newspapers because they have too many words and not enough pretty pictures.

Oh, Great

Now even the troops are demoralizing the troops. Sure, they're happy with the first half-dozen reasons they were given to go to war, but reason Number #7 comes along and all of the sudden they're Mr. and Mrs. Hoity-Toity Why Are We Here Wah Wah Wah. F'ing flip-floppers. (link)

Best quote:

Asked if he was concerned that the Marines would be punished for speaking out, Autin responded: "We don't give a crap. What are they going to do, send us to Iraq?"

On a side note, if you want to find out why The Washington Post rocks, read the first article I linked (reason Number #7). If that same article appeared in another newspaper, it would have been watered-down and weakened out of an editor's fear of appearing biased. When a newspaper can back its assertions with facts, it should never shy away from expressing those assertions in the strongest terms.