Tag: news media

Matt Drudge Is A Slimy Weasel

drudge-screengrab-8-14-14-805p-pdt

Matt Drudge is a slimy weasel and the poster child for why America’s so damned angry. The screengrab above is from Drudgereport.com, Thursday evening, 8:08 PM PDT. His headline, “‘HOPE AND CHANGE’ TURNS TO RAGE”

As is normally the case, Drudge isn’t promoting his own story, but one published elsewhere. His link is to Britain’s Mail Online and describes what happened yesterday, not tonight.

Heavily armed SWAT police trained their guns on the public and fired tear gas in Ferguson, Missouri, last night as racial unrest over the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teen rocked the St. Louis suburb for the fourth night running. (emphasis mine)

An inflammatory photo of Michael Brown, the unarmed young man shot by a Ferguson, MO policeman sits above the headline, his middle finger unfurled. The headline itself is a dig at President Obama. It’s a Drudge twofer!

But, hold on. Brown was a high school graduate getting set to attend trade school for HVAC repair. He had no criminal record. In other words, he was training for a job. He was no thug.

cjmusickAttorney C.J. Musick came up with “#IfTheyGunnedMeDown,” a hashtag which quickly went viral on Twitter. Black men (and a few women) posted two shots of themselves–one which could be interpreted as threatening and another more mainstream and docile.

The attached photos on the left shows Musick with President Clinton and with a bottle of cognac. Which would be used #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, he asked?

Drudge can’t be bothered with tonight’s turnabout to peaceful protests under the supervision of the Missouri Highway Patrol and with a less militarized police presence. That doesn’t fit his narrative.

The press should be free. Drudge is entitled to slant the news as he wishes. It’s our right. It’s his right. But, someone’s got to call him out on it.

I can’t guarantee tonight will stay trouble free. But I won’t purposely blind myself to the truth as Drudge has.

The New News Channels

You’re Japan. You’ve set the bar high with your toilets. You need to step it up.

I would love to visit Tokyo, but NHK makes me worry what Japan is really like.

Recently our cable lineup has expanded with One America News Network, Al Jazeera America, NHK, BBC World News and CCTV. That’s a lot of extra news channels. Each is sparsely watched, but worthy of checking out.

OANlogo1The most obscure is OANN, based in San Diego. It’s straight news 24/7 with a few political talk shows, all to the right of what Fox News considers mainstream.

The news is down the middle but suffers greatly with virtually no staff reporters. OANN relies on video services, which have a high percentage of foreign news and plain vanilla writing.

Most of the OANN anchors are young and virtually zombified on-the-air. Seemingly, they’ve been instructed to add no personality to what is already drab. Tough to watch.

OANN does not run cheesy 800 number TV offer commercials! Instead they’ve produced inspirational videos featuring patriotic scenes and unidentified voiceovers. They’re tracks from broadcasts by Edward R. Murrow, John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. Lots of Richard Nixon!

Without a doubt One America News Network spends less on news than any other network.

al jazeera logo blueAl Jazeera America is surprisingly good. Watch for familiar faces, once elsewhere. The coverage is smart and first rate. This is not a happy talk outfit.

Ratings say audiences aren’t buying it. Lots of people won’t watch because of the name or the owners. They start with that handicap.

I haven’t watched enough Israel/Hamas coverage to get a feel for AJA’s slant. Qatar supports Hamas and controls Al Jazeera. Can their broadcast be trusted?

nhk_series_0_1NHK is Japans national network. This is the country with the crazy game shows, TV screens full of blinking fonts and J-Pop. NHK is the opposite. NHK is the cure for insomnia.

Some of NHK’s non-news programs are dubbed in English. The voices are laid back and boring. Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto.

You’re Japan. You’ve set the bar high with your toilets. You need to step it up.

I would love to visit Tokyo, but NHK makes me worry what Japan is really like.

I don’t even stop to sample NHK anymore. Always disappointing.

bbc-world-newsWe got the BBC months ago. I thought I’d watch it a lot. I don’t.

Their reporters and presenters are great, but I find the production cumbersome and intrusive. The gigantic news set is supposed to be part of the production, but gets in the way more often than not. It’s a distraction.

No one has more reporters than BBC. It makes a difference. I have watched them for breaking news, especially in the late evenings when America’s cable networks think everyone is asleep. Great reporters.

I’m a sporadic viewer.

cctv newsFinally, CCTV. It is on Channel 3602! CCTV is buried in a block of foreign language channels, specifically a section of Chinese language channels. All the other news stations are in the 1200s. There are no other English channels above 2000.

I discovered CCTV by accident while attempting to thumb through all my channels.

CCTV NEWS is the English language news channel of China Central Television (CCTV), the nation’s largest national broadcasting network.

It’s owned by the Chinese government. CCTV does feature many American and British, non-Chinese, anchors and reporters. That was a surprise.

I haven’t known about this long enough to have an opinion. It’s just weird that China has a TV station on my cable system.

Malaysian Airlines News And Speculation At CNN

Malaysia_Airlines_Boeing_777-2H6ER;_9M-MRG@ZRH;07.08.1998_(4794758296)I have to hand it to CNN. There’s no story I’m interested in as much as the Malaysian Airlines disappearance. They’re pouring everything they’ve got on it. That’s the good news.

The bad news is, with little new info or new info fragments, CNN has turned to speculating. I’ve heard Wolf Blitzer try and pin the rumors on others, but when it’s your megaphone that’s giving voice to these rumors you inherit responsibility. You can’t just attribute it away.

If I was in charge of CNN what would I do? I don’t know. The audience gains from all this wall-to-wall theory porn are appealing. CNN needs to stay profitable. So much temptation.

This is very similar to the steps that moved local TV news away from difficult-to-report issue stories to the crime/anecdote stories which now dominate.

CNN is seeing short term gain, but what is the long term price?

The Bourdain Disagreement

anthony-bourdain-no-reservationsThere’s a minor disagreement in the Fox house. I think Anthony Bourdain’s show on CNN, “No Reservations,” “Parts Unknown,” is close to amazing. That is not a unanimous opinion.

Masterfully written. Nicely shot. He goes places I dream of, but know I’ll never see.

Tonight’s show is paused. He’s in Congo.

Helaine’s opinion of Bourdain is exactly opposite mine.

The show has Anthony traveling the world, marveling at local (often rudimentary) cuisine. It is the ultimate armchair travelogue. He flies in rickety third world airplanes, travels rivers in rickety boats, drives over rutted and potholed roads while eating food prepared with minimal consideration of hygiene.

There’s no doubt this is Anthony’s show. He will often address the camera directly. Lots of ‘me roll.’

Back to the writing. It’s the most important element in televised storytelling.

Guys like Bourdain and Alton Brown understand how to write prose which will be spoken. Bourdain’s script is crafted in his spoken voice. The narration is embedded deep within the fabric of the story–no less a player than the photography itself.

I’d like to think I write like that. Maybe not. I try.

The word is CNN will air more documentary type shows, like Bourdain’s, in 2014. From Deadline.com:

“The goal for the next six months, is that we need more shows and less newscasts,” Zucker said in a recent interview about “massive changes” he’s got planned for the network, adding that he wants CNN to attract “viewers who are watching places like Discovery and History and Nat Geo and A&E.”

That’s good new and bad news. Among the bad, every hour of doc programming is an hour less of news. CNN is already news challenged too many hours of the day.

The good news is shows like Bourdain’s are worthwhile endeavors. We know so little of the world around us.

Is “The American Game” Rigged?

Don’t use me to make your boyfriend jealous.

I am seldom as profoundly affected by an op-ed piece as I was by Frank Rich in Sunday’s NY Times.

What the Great Recession has crystallized is a larger syndrome that Obama tapped into during the campaign. It’s the sinking sensation that the American game is rigged — that, as the president typically put it a month after his inauguration, the system is in hock to “the interests of powerful lobbyists or the wealthiest few” who have “run Washington far too long.” He promised to smite them.

No president can do that alone, let alone in six months. To make Obama’s goal more quixotic, the ailment that he diagnosed is far bigger than Washington and often beyond politics’ domain. What disturbs Americans of all ideological persuasions is the fear that almost everything, not just government, is fixed or manipulated by some powerful hidden hand, from commercial transactions as trivial as the sales of prime concert tickets to cultural forces as pervasive as the news media.

Though President Obama was elected by appealing to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, liberals are now marginalized on the edge. With no one farther left Obama has shifted farther right knowing we’ve no place else to go.

I understand this move to the center as a strategy, but I am left feeling unclean and used. Don’t use me to make your boyfriend jealous.

It’s not just health care that has me bugged. It’s all sorts of national security issues reaching back to policies of the Bush administration that need to be unwound.

To me liberalism is just another name for idealism. Good deeds should be rewarded. Bad deeds should be punished. Governmental rules should encourage good behavior. We continue to do the opposite.

President Obama was nominated and then elected heavily on the backs of people who feel as I do–and he himself made promises to that effect.

There is no satisfaction in this airing of my angst.

Throgs Neck Bridge Photography–The Answer

The truth is until there’s someone monitoring every car photos will be taken. A person intent on harm isn’t going to be stopped by this.

The MTA has answer concerning photography on the Throgs Neck Bridge. As everyone suspected the decision was 9/11 related.

Dear Mr. Fox:

Thank you for contacting us on this issue. Following 9/11 we instituted a strict no access policy for filming and photography. Since 2002 we have had limited access. Requests for photography and filiming must be reviewed on an individual basis by our Internal Security Department. No security sensitive areas may be filmed or photographed. The news media is accommodated consistent with security concerns.

We do not allow unauthorized photography or filming of our facilities by the general public because of safety concerns for our customers, the safety of our facilities and to avoid interference with operations. I hope this answers your question..

Sincerely,

Judie Glave

MTA Bridges and Tunnels

As with so many other well meaning security measures it was taken quickly because it posed no real cost for MTA. It’s a meaningless gesture which only inconveniences those least likely to use photos for nefarious purposes.

The truth is until there’s someone monitoring every car, photos will be taken. A person intent on harm isn’t going to be stopped by this rule.

More importantly, our way-of-living is based on inherent freedoms. There was never a law allowing photography on the bridge. Being able to freely take pictures here is a given as opposed to policies in the old Soviet Union or North Korea

As I said in my earlier post I was on my way to photograph the iconic Brooklyn Bridge, a much more likely place of interest for someone(s) wanting to make an evil statement. And the Throgs Neck Bridge is only one of thousands of potential terrorist targets in New York City.

The sixties liberal in me talking now. Isn’t it a little ironic that some people will take away your freedom in the name of preserving your freedom. You can’t have it both ways.

I’m With Al On This

Former Vice President Al Gore is on the stump, promoting his new book, “Assault on Reason.” One of his points, something I agree with&#185, is the marginalization of elections, treating them like horse races or beauty contests.

Here’s what TVNewser wrote about Gore’s appearance on Good Morning America.

After promising to “dig deeper” later, in an as-yet-unaired segment, Sawyer looked off-camera and said “to dig not very deep, at my peril here, I just want to say one more time. Donna Brazille, your former campaign manager, says ‘if he drops 25 to 30 pounds, he’s running.’ Lost any weight?”

Gore laughed heartily. “I think millions of Americans are in the same struggle I am on that one,” he responded. “But listen to your questions. The horserace, the cosmetic parts of this — look, that’s all understandable and natural. But while we’re focused on Britney and K-fed and Anna Nicole Smith and all this stuff, meanwhile, very quietly, our country has been making some very serious mistakes that could be avoided if we, the people, including the news media, are involved in a full and vigorous discussion of what our choices are.”

When I first wrote about this back in Janurary, I quoted Ann Coulter. Now Al Gore. Could there be stranger bedfellows? Yet they’re on the same page here.

Looking at polls, statistics and Al Gore’s weight are simple – but that’s not reporting. That’s not news. It’s really ‘newsroom helper’… a way to fill more space with less product. And, it’s a disservice to all of us.

No matter what the election, our decisions are important. There are matters of taxes, the environment, even war and peace.

The horse race element just takes our attention off the real issues and makes the whole thing superficial. It does us all a disservice.

&#185 – As you probably know, Al and I part company on An Inconvenient Truth.

Gene Klavan

When I was growing up, my parents (mostly my dad) listened to WNEW. To me it represented what adult life was about. It was sophisticated and upwardly mobile. The stars of that era of popular music hung out at WNEW and socialized with the disk jockeys.

It was a Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Jack Jones, Steve & Eydie kind of place.

The morning show was Klavan and Finch. Gene Klavan was the comic and Dee Finch his straight man. This past week Gene Klavan died at 79.

I was speaking to my dad tonight, looking for the right moment to tell him about Klavan, when he told me.

I stopped for a minute. Is it right to tell a 78 year old about the death of a 79 year old? And then I asked him.

I didn’t want to pry, but I wondered how my dad looked at death. I think (and he reads this so he’ll tell me if I’m wrong) that he just sees it as a part of life. Where he lives, in Florida, he is surrounded by it.

His life now is the best it’s ever been. He and my mom are incredibly active – much more so than ever before. He says, 78 is an age he never imagined, much less consciously thought of.

I see my parents living forever. But they are so much better at dealing with reality than I am.

Continue reading “Gene Klavan”

Blown Out of Proportion

I got an email this morning from a mailing list at Sky and Telescope Magazine run by Cary Oler:

It is remarkable how often the news media take scattered facts, throw

them together incorrectly and then claim authenticity. Such was the case in

abundance for the space weather storm of 24 October. Media reports that this

storm would be a “perfect storm” or the “once in a 100 year event” were

shamefully inaccurate.

I guess I was one of those taken in. But why? I’m usually pretty cynical of these things, even when the Drudge headline said ‘Perfect space storm’ coming to Earth… ” I still did loads of research on-line trying to understand what was going on.

If this wasn’t big, then NASA’s website wasn’t helping:

This week researchers have been observing an enormous sunspot the size of Jupiter. As a result of associated flares, NOAA predicts strong geomagnetic storms to hit Earth on Friday with the potential to affect electrical grids and satellite communications. Aurora may be visible as far south as Oregon and Illinois. Meanwhile, scientists are watching another large sunspot rotate toward us with potential for even more powerful and prevalent explosions.

And, from another NASA site:

Earlier this week, a large sunspot region caught the attention of many sungazers around the world. Sunspot region 10484 was associated with several powerful solar flares, including one X-class event (the most powerful category). The sunspots in the region covers more than 1700 millionths of the visible solar surface, or 10 times the surface of the entire Earth!

But hold on! Another region, number 10486, has rotated onto the solar disk, showing even more signs of activity. And this particular region caught the attention of solar physicists while it was still on the far side of the Sun! In the MDI instrument’s far side imaging pictures, it showed considerable development over a short period of time. The rapid growth was noted by KehCheng Chu of Stanford University, but the fact was not widely publicized. “The data were a bit scarce, and there was a chance that the images were influenced by this,” says Phil Scherrer, Principal Investigator for MDI.

The speculations have been vindicated by a lot of activity (including an even stronger X flare) coming from this new region. Although not quite as large in sunspot area (1160 millionths of the visible surface), it is still considered somewhat more likely to produce the most powerful flares.

I’m not upset that I got to talk about the flares and sunspots. There’s great supporting video and hopefully people got a little more understanding of what’s going on in space. I’m more worried that people in the scientific community are willing to exaggerate.

Science is the last place that should happen.