Our media is tainted. Really - and we don’t even know it. Well, maybe we do, but the media sources will never admit it. They’ll even go so far as to fire someone for expressing support for a candidate. But it doesn’t make sense - the media is made up of people, like you and me (sorta) that have opinions. They believe things. And I’m sure they choose sides. But they’ll never openly express them - they’ll claim they’re being “balanced” - and I think that’s akin to lying.
When you become a sports reporter, you are “supposed” to set your team allegiances aside and report from a neutral stance. That’s “journalism” in action. The problem is - if you’re a sportswriter, you probably got into the business because you like sports - probably a specific team. It’s wrong to have to either set that aside or hide it. And many newer, younger columnists are writing from a fan’s viewpoint - and they openly admit they’re homers for a team. And for me, that’s OK - I’d rather know.
This translates into politics as well. Why is a staffer fired for saying she supports McCain - yet nothing done to a reporter who quietly does as well? Are we to assume that this reporter 100% never lets his/her bias color their reporting? Is that even possible? I don’t think so. I think, as a reporter, you should not only be allowed to voice your preferences - you should be obligated to. Let known your bias, and let the viewer judge what that means for your reporting. If all reporters did that - openly - no one would worry about “fair and balanced” news coverage - you could go to multiple sources and compare. You would know the bias - and that would be truth in reporting, a real journalistic ideal.
I’ve got a trip coming up. I’ll be heading up to San Francisco this Sunday evening, on business. There’s a conference for a software package we use (and aren’t particularly fond of) and my boss wants me to put in an appearance - as well as voice a concern or two. Otherwise, I don’t foresee the conference being of much value to me. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
On the upside, I’ll be able to do a *little* recreational activity, unlike the last business trip to SF I took. That time, I was stuck in a hotel by the airport, with really nothing around. This time, I’ll be right in The City (pompous bastages) in the Embarcadero. I’m meeting one of my best friends for dinner - I haven’t seen him in a while and I missed out on the last trip my friends took to visit him - on Sunday night, after I fly in. And somehow take the BART from the airport to the stop near my hotel. Never used the BART, not really sure how that all works.
Anyway. I’m also really excited to go to the Giants game Monday night! I’ve never been to that stadium, actually haven’t even been to a baseball game this year. It’s been far too long since I got out to a game around here. I have a great seat too, and I am bringing my camera for sure. So stay tuned for that.
Tuesday night is business dinner. Yeah.
Wednesday morning I figure out a way back to the aeropuerto and fly back to Los Angeles. Trip over.
Sorry to all my SF friends who I will not be able to see. I apologize in advance - if I could skip out on the conference and just visit people, I totally would. That probably wouldn’t be wise though.
Are you reading this on a piece of paper that was delivered to your door? Have you forgone delivery to your door for digital delivery of your favorite newspaper? Do you ONLY read a mainstream news source and never any other sources? Apparently Buzz Bissinger would prefer you not read anything but content that has been sanitized for your protection. See, Mr. Bissinger is an Old Media type of guy, and by many accounts, a very talented write and columnist. I have never read any of his work, so I will not comment. However, he is downright disgusted by anything on the internet. And willing to attack a blogger, live and in person. He verbally assaulted poor Will Leitch (with a dumbfounded Braylon Edwards looking on) during a show hosted by Bob Costas on HBO. Will is the founder of one of the top sports blog sites on the net, deadspin.com.
The HBO excerpt is worth watching, though long. Bissinger, and to an extent, Costas as well, believes that almost all blogs are written by unqualified hacks that spout venom and exist only to write cruel words. Leitch, of course, disagrees with this. Bissinger believes strongly in journalistic integrity, whereas Leitch unabashedly admits he is a fan first. This is a legitimate discussion on the meaning of “journalism” - because it is changing.
One of the supposed hallmarks, a sacred cow, of journalism is neutrality. Leitch makes a good point when he says that if you weren’t a fan first, why did you get into sportswriting? And once you did - why do you have to stop being a fan? This sort of mentality is spreading across journalism and causing problems for everyone. Is neutrality important? Do you know anyone who truly believes that Fox News, or the New York Times, are fair and impartial news sources? I don’t. Same goes for sportswriting - many of the new columnists, internet columnists, are fans first. Bill Simmons on ESPN.com is a prime example. He makes no bones about being a fan of his teams. And for me that’s OK - I have no problem with a journalist being a fan first - as long as he admits it. That’s where I, personally, have problems with biased news sources - they act like they aren’t. But let’s be honest - sports don’t matter like news does. Sports is all about being a fan. So if I read someone who is a fan, as long as I know it, I can enjoy it. In fact, I feel I learn more about a sport, a team, a player, a game from someone who is an actual fan of the participants. Bissinger mentions WC Heinz and his ability to paint an emotional picture of a game. That’s great - but the reason it’s talent is that he paints an emotional picture from the standpoint of no emotional attachment in the first place. He creates something out of nothing. For a fan - it’s not hard at all. They start with the emotions, and simply need to communicate them to the reader. That’s talent too - a different kind.
Blogs are full of venom and opinion - this is true. They expose athletes for being real people by showing their (supposedly, at times) private moments. Now we can debate all day about what is acceptable to report and what isn’t. And that’s a valid debate. But for years sportswriters had deals with the devils themselves - they protected players indiscretions in exchange for “insider” access. It was unlikely those secrets would be out in the world, sportswriters were the gatekeepers. But now, if you are a public figure, you are a public figure. Some athletes forget this - this is part of their deal. They will become rich and famous at the price of their privacy. You don’t like it - go be an accountant. People are watching. Braylon Edwards mentioned that they aren’t doing anything different than athletes 40 years ago. He’s right. It’s just that now - the public WILL find out. You can no longer exchange access for protection.
This is very much the case of putting toothpaste back into the tube and getting exactly what you wished for. For years reporters ran human interest pieces on athletes. They’re human! They’re just like us! They’re not robots, they have feelings! Charles Barkley famously said “I am not a role model” - and this is why. Athletes are not the gods they were assumed to be in the mid 20th Century. They struggled to prove it. Well, now we believe it. We know it. You don’t need to run a human interest piece - we KNOW athletes are as human as the rest of us. And we have the cell-phone pictures to prove it.
None of this is going away. This is the new world. If you don’t want to be caught doing something - DON’T DO IT. Otherwise, you’d better be prepared to embrace it. Some people have - Paris Hilton launched her career off of this. She’s famous for being famous. Others have crumbled under the glaring eye - Britney Spears for example. I’m sure if you followed ANY parent around you’d see them do something that would make Dr. Spock cringe.
Bissinger is upset because there is no accountability for bloggers. He’s dead wrong on that. Bloggers are not accountable to organizations or the subjects of their stories, but to their readers. If they are consistently wrong or idiotic - they won’t have any readers. Plain and simple. Credibility, once destroyed, is VERY difficult to get back on the internet. Any thing you say will quickly be followed by links to your previous incorrect posts - assuming anyone even cares anymore. While anyone can say anything on the internet, it doesn’t matter if no one is listening.
The internet and bloggers aren’t going anywhere. Journalists are NO LONGER THE GATEKEEPERS of information. With the internet, ideas can be shared. The conversation has grown. It has exploded. And it cannot be ignored. It’s time for the old media types to figure it out - they’re not quite getting it yet. Instead of getting cranky - try starting a blog. See how hard it is. See what it takes, and look at why some are successful and some aren’t. If you’re the talented journalists you claim to be, then you’ll be able to figure out. But the competition has changed, and there’s more of it than ever before. That’s great for the reader, and terrifying for the writers who previously had a captive audience. Instead of complaining that someone is stealing your audience - steal it back.
For further reading, I recommend starting with Joe Posnanski’s take, as well as that of Will Carroll and Scott Long. And don’t miss Leitch on Best Damn Sports Show. Jason Whitlock takes a somewhat middle road, though he clearly has a personal beef with Leitch and deadspin. I’m not familiar with the particulars, so I won’t venture to comment. One of my favorites, Voros McCracken, weighs in.
One of the things that drives me insane - and this is tangentially related to the last post - is the trend in this country to treat “elite” as a four-letter word - especially when coupled with “intellectual”. We talk about the importance of education in this country, the importance of a college education and a degree - and then we cut down those who have gone and followed that advice. The charge of “elite” and “intellectual” has been successfully leveled as a negative against both Al Gore and John Kerry. So we’re saying we don’t want intelligent, top of the line individuals running our country? Really? (Oh, I guess so - look who we ended up with…) I had one friend posit that the reason Kerry was cut down for being an “intellectual” was because he acted like he was smarter than everyone else. And people don’t want to be reminded they’re not as smart as the guy behind the podium.
You know what? Grow up. There are people out there smarter than you - you aren’t Stephen Hawking. (Can we agree he’s pretty goddamn smart at least?) And frankly, I consider myself a pretty bright guy, and I definitely want people smarter than I am running this country. (If that’s not possible, then I want me. If I feel I can do a better job than our leaders, our leaders probably aren’t very good….because….) If we go around telling people to become specialists in a field only to ignore them - what incentive is there to become a specialist? Let’s just have high-school metal shop kids design a nuclear sub. Let’s have first year poli-sci students serve on the Supreme Court. New pharmaceutical drugs? Kids in basements with erector sets.
See, each of these positions, while possibly concerning morality and character, take an AWFUL lot of study and expertise. Only the intellectual elite should be working on these things. So when the vast majority of experts in a field tell you something, you should probably listen and not assume your political stance trumps it. (You might think this is about Global Warming, and though that is an excellent example, it’s not where I’m going at the moment)
This country has sunk over ONE BILLION DOLLARS into abstinence-only sex education in the past 20 years. And just about every study and just about every expert (read, intellectual elite) says that it’s a complete waste of money and it doesn’t work. These are smart, trained experts. They have looked at actual data on the subject. That kind of sex “education” doesn’t work. (Sorry, it’s not education when you leave out 90% of what’s involved in the subject. It wouldn’t be an America history education if you started from 1985 on, it wouldn’t be a math education if you stopped at basic arithmetic.) It should really be no goddamn surprise that pregnancy and STD rates rise when you don’t give kids information on how to avoid those things. Sticking your head in the sand is not a valid response, ESPECIALLY when you have the data in front of you showing you what DOES work.
Does this matter to politicians? Not in the slightest. Rep. John Duncan (R-TN)
… it seems “rather elitist” that people with academic degrees in health think they know better than parents what type of sex education is appropriate. “I don’t think it’s something we should abandon,” he said of abstinence-only funding.
Well it’s clearly elitist of me to assume that because you’re in Congress to assume you’re not a goddamn moron, that you might know better about making laws than I do. And yet - I’m forced to question your competence. When you are shown by a mathematician that 2+2=4, stop screaming that it should equal 3! STOP! JUST STOP!
Yes, people with academic health degrees know better than you what type of sex education is appropriate. Why? Because they have the evidence, training and proof. Why is it not the parent’s decision? Because last I checked, the parents who are most likely to believe their little angels never take their pants off are the same parents who think abstinence-only is the way to go. Not only are they not experts in sex-ed, they’re purposely ignorant of it.
If you want to teach your kid not to have sex before marriage, that’s great, that’s your moral duty. HOWEVER it is not acceptable to keep the kid ignorant of how it works. Do we pretend that guns don’t exist in the hope that kids never encounter one? Or do we teach them that guns are dangerous weapons to be avoided if pointing at you. Even more relevant (since we’re talking about a loaded gun in their pants, so to speak), do we teach kids simply to never touch the gun in the house, or do we teach them how to handle it properly, when it should be used, how it works and why its dangerous? Typically #2 is what is done - and if parents stick with #1, well that’s how accidental shootings happen.
I don’t even know if I should bother to go on here. But this is a serious problem. When large swaths of the country ignore FACTS and deny KNOWLEDGE from their children, we’re going to end up with a nation of idiots, or at best, ignorants. Don’t tell people to get all the education they can, and then ignore them when they do. Don’t say America has the best and the brightest, and then pretend like they’re idiots.
Intellectual Elites are what made this country great (check out that Declaration of Independence thing, that Constitution thing) and we shouldn’t forget that. EDUCATION is the greatest weapon in the world - to ignore it is to ask to be plunged back into the dark ages. (which didn’t really exist - or have you not read that post?)
Hopefully - Greenpeace founder supports Nuclear Power. Once the Ecofundies get on board and realize nuke power should be their best friend, maybe we can get something done. You want to end dependence on dirty power? Go clean AND efficient. Light the reactors people.
So today CNN has a story on a subject I’m actually peripherally qualified to pontificate on - LASIK surgery. Apparently there’s a rising clamor for the FDA to look into so-called “success stories” that aren’t successes at all. Some people get their 20/20 vision, but they have such awful complications they are miserable - some to the point of suicide.
Now of course I sympathize. That sucks - you go in for a procedure that you’re told is safe and reliable - and something awful happens. But sometimes, you have to accept it. Not EVERYTHING bad that happens is unfair or negligent - it’s just bad. First off, it’s not a 100%. And if you went to a competent physician, you were handed a waiver that discusses all the things that could go wrong (scary) and that it DOES happen (scarier) a certain percentage of the time. And then you sign the waiver and laser beams shot into your eyes. If it goes wrong - well, you were warned, and you signed acknowledgment. It blows but…it happens. Feel free to investigate for fault, but it might not be anyone’s fault.
However, sometimes it’s your own.
Colin Dorrian was a college student when he was told he wasn’t a good LASIK candidate, but went ahead anyway — and his father, Gerald, described six years of eye pain and blurred vision before reading his son’s suicide note to a Food and Drug Administration panel: “I can’t and won’t continue facing this horror.”
If a doctor, an expert on this, a medical professional, tells you that you’re NOT a good candidate - then DON’T have the surgery! I wasn’t a good LASIK candidate - and I didn’t for a minute consider it. In fact I was really upset when the doc said “You’re not a good LASIK candidate” because I wasn’t aware of an alternative. He explained it a few seconds later, but at first - I was pretty disappointed. It took me a long time to get up the courage to start the process, and so it was very deflating. But this guy should have had the alternatives offered to me. I can’t say for sure if he did, but if so - take the doctor’s advice.
The article discusses dry-eye as a main side effect - so bad it causes severe pain in people. I can sorta understand this - I do have some dry-eye problems. Some days are especially bad for me, and often upon waking up I’ll have bad dry-eye. That’s why I have eye drops. And everyone I know who’s had LASIK uses eye drops. So this is pretty common - the severity is of course, random. This is a risk.
Any surgery is a risk. I’m all for studying and improving vision correction surgeries - but don’t act like you weren’t warned. If you weren’t, that’s malpractice - but if you were, you can’t go claiming this was unexpected. The world is not a perfect place.
That said, if these people can’t currently be helped, then there should be some research into developing ways TO help them.
Summer Glau, Isla Fisher and Leslie Mann as 40’s style pin-up girls? Among many others? Be still my beating heart….seriously…before I have a heart attack….
Americans have long been conditioned - resigned, even - to vote for the lesser of two evils. It’s pretty much inevitable given our current electoral system. And people are more likely to vote against the greater evil instead of for the lesser evil. Because of this, political analysts often will not only look at favorability ratings, but also unfavorability ratings - in other words, they look at who will vote against you.
So what do you do when you are considered one of the most reviled of all Americans? I suppose you’d have to find someone even more unpalatable to run against. For me, there’s only one group of people in America I could beat. (I love this quote: “Three of the religious groups included in the survey are mostly viewed negatively, including Scientologists, atheists, and Muslims, with Scientologists having the lowest overall rating.” - I think I’m offended at being considered a “religious” group…)
Any Scientologists want to take me on in a political race? Me and a Muslim or a Mormon on the same ticket - unstoppable!*
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