With all the idiots pretending to work in the News these days and the attempt News Stuck makes to highlight their utter failure as journalists, this post is being published as the carrot that needs to compliment the use of any stick. There are in fact a few quality people left in the decaying media and overlooking their efforts would be as big an error on our part as ignoring them has been on the part of most mass media organizations.
This is neither a "left or right", "liberal or conservative" nor "regional" distinction as the News would have you believe. The distinction is one of work ethic, integrity and loyalty to the consumer instead of the sponsor. Rare examples can be found in very different political ideologies, cultures and nationalities. No group has a monopoly on the desire to seek the truth and to report it.
As two current examples of quality journalists, I suggest you review the works of George Will (a noted conservative) and Bill Moyers (a noted liberal). Neither is better than the other, neither is in competition with the other.
That is a key point. Quality journalism is not about competition between journalists, there is no cap on the number of journalists who may be deemed to be of quality, the competition most believe they are in is purely born of the business aspect of our failed media.
What inspired this blog entry was a new television report created by Mr. Moyers called "Buying The War" which will be airing on April 25th on PBS (check local listings for show times). The production should get a lot more attention than it has so far, it should be lauded with all kinds of awards - not because it is for or against the war... but because it takes an earnest look at the run up to the war and examines the information which was presented to the public the way the entire media should have examined it the first time around.
The program is approximately 90 minutes in length and includes interviews with many noted journalists whose track record shows they should have been given a louder bullhorn years ago when the public was too busy listening to idiots who did little research and even less true analysis.
This look back should be required viewing of any journalism ethics course because more than anything else it demonstrates the real responsibility that an apathetic and lazy media organization takes on when failing to do its duty on behalf of its viewers, listeners and readers.
Companies like Tribune, News Corp, ABC and most of the others do not merely deserve a bad grade. They fell down on the job like drunken janitors trying to sleep off their hangover in the broom closet during the work day and their stupor has had real consequences. In fact, they have as much blood on their hands as the administration that metaphorically poured them drinks and bought them hookers the night before the war began.
Watch Moyers' work, he is one of the few men in media whose work can considered as both a noun and a verb.
You may have heard of Alec Baldwin. He is an actor. Some people think he is a very talented actor. He apparently has a daughter and he is embroiled in a custody battle with his ex-wife who happens to be a model named Kim Basinger.
If you know all of the things mentioned in the prior paragraph you may want to consider starting a class action lawsuit against any number of media outlets that have caused you to waste your mental resources learning these facts of infinitely small importance.
Your brain, no matter how bright you are and how well exercised it is, has a limited amount of memory space within it on a fundamental level. Just like your computer hard drive being filled up with email spam or junk files your idiot relative from the boonies sends you as chain letters, your brain itself can become overloaded with meaningless Alec Baldwin drama plot points to a level after which it fails to handle meaningful information as effectively as it should.
How is the media's deterioration of your mental capacity any different from an asbestos manufacturer's deterioration of your lung capacity? Put simply - it isn't, and it should be just as actionable in our legal system. The public airwaves do not differ from the public air to such an extent as to protect one polluter and not another.
Warning - The Following Video Clip Will Destroy Approximately 20megabytes of your brain capacity irreversibly once you watch it
The video clip above and others like it should all be marked with a Surgeon General warning. In fact, anything produced as part of the TV show The View should come with a warning in advance and should only be accessible to adults over the age of eighteen.
If you think adult movies, cigarettes, alcohol, firearms or violent video-games are not suitable for minors; how in the world can you reconcile that viewpoint with the idea that children of any age are allowed and in fact encouraged to sit in front of a TV set each day watching "safe harbor" programing like The View so that they can brush up on their knowledge of Alec Baldwin blunders when they could instead be doing something far better with their time: like getting drunk while smoking in bed holding a loaded handgun and watching a porno movie playing wide-screen on their television.
You may think I'm being sarcastic but in fact I am not. Sarcasm would require "A cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound" according to Dictionary.com and I assure you there is nothing ironic meant by what I have written.
Given a choice between growing old in a world run by people who grew up learning about video-games, human sexuality and the joys of being drunk - or a world run by people who know what Alec Baldwin called his daughter during an irate private phone call, I would definitely prefer the horny drunken smokers were given the chance to lead for a while.
The video shown above has not been enhanced or doctored in any way. It appeared live on ABC television over the past weekend and it shows exactly what happened to Kyle Busch's car during Saturday's NASCAR Busch Series race at Talladega Superspeedway. Did you notice anything surprising at the end of the video clip?
The typical news story has been: "Busch was in second place as the field drove off Turn 4 on the 2.66-mile oval to complete Lap 27 of the 117-lap Aaron's 312 race. The Nextel Cup star suddenly darted up the banking as he prepared to pass Casey Mears for the lead. Two-time Cup champion Tony Stewart, in third, followed and appeared to hit Busch's car. Busch then bounced off the car driven by Mears and turned across the track and into the wall. Busch's car was on its side as it struck the outside barrier, then skidded on its roof down the banking and onto the grass infield, where it began barrel-rolling as flames erupted from under the hood. Stewart and Mears were both able to continue."
Shouldn't the real News have been something more like: "Today, a car going over 200 miles per hour struck a concrete wall and slid on its hood for several hundred feet before it tumbled through a series of barrel rolls while on fire... the driver climbed out the window moments after it came to a halt; he was able to walk away under his own power with little more than a headache and a sore shoulder"?
Seriously, if a car can endure a crash like this and leave the person inside it completely uninjured, isn't that far more important to the average person's life than who won a race or leads in some idiotic points standings?
Imagine going down the highway in your Toyota Camry and having a head-on collision with another car. To match the force of going 200 miles an hour into a concrete wall as Mr. Busch did, you would have to be going approximately 90-100 miles per hour straight into an oncoming car of equal weight which was going 90-100 miles per hour in the opposite direction.
Who here thinks if that happened, that they and the driver of the other car would each be able to climb out their driver's side car window to walk over to each other and exchange insurance information while waiting for the police to arrive with accident report paperwork?!
If an accident like that ever happened - you would be so dead, the other driver would be so dead... heck, your families would be lucky to find enough pieces of you to fill a shoe box for your burials. I understand that NASCAR vehicles are specially made race cars built to go excessive speeds and constructed better than consumer cars.
I know that they are far more expensive than consumer cars could ever be for mass market appeal - but if one of them can handle 200 miles per hour into a concrete wall and several flaming flips... can't we reach a point where consumer cars can handle the standard 60-70 mile per hour accident without the driver having to spend weeks in the hospital eating through a straw?
It would be nice if the "News" at least examined the issue and tried to find out what consumer car crash standards differ so widely from race cars and investigated what improvements could in fact be made to the safety of the vehicles most people drive.... instead of worrying so much about how this will affect the standings of this year's NASCAR leader board.
