Newspaper Madness

One of the arguments that people–and by people I mean print journalists–make for the inability of newspapers to move online is the claim that the level of reporting would suffer because news outlets, due to the smaller levels of revenue available online, would have to close foreign bureaus and layoff staff and just generally not be able to do as much reporting as they have traditionally done.  Fair enough.  The loss of solid reporting would be a loss to society.  However, that argument can only hold water if the two basic assumptions underpinning it–that quality reporting can’t be accomplished without a wide network of standing bureaus and that online reporting is inherently inferior to its print cousin–are actually true.  I’ve encountered a couple of things in recent weeks that lead me to believe that neither is.

The first has been the coverage of the demonstrations in Iran.  While The New York Times has mostly reported on the press releases and statements of the most hardline Ayatollahs and the dismal to the point of being pathetic Ahmadinejad, Andrew Sullivan on his blog The Daily Dish has been doing actual reporting based on Twitter tweets and emails and on information gleaned from people who have connections with family and friends inside Iran.  This is reporting.  And this is why, when a very important and respected group of Ayatollahs came out against the recent election, all the big news outlets were slack-jawed in their disbelief while Andrew and his readers were not.

The second piece of reporting has had to do with the sudden resignation last week by Governor Sarah Palin.  (For the sake of the argument I am presenting, I offer no opinions for or against Gov. Palin.  This has to do with reporting facts, not opinions.)  While the MSM took the Governor’s statement at face value and, even in interviews, tossed her softball questions, online outlets were checking her statements to see what was factual and what wasn’t.  Again, the online outlets are reporting while the MSM is passing along press releases.

None of this is new.  The MSM let us down in considering the Iraq War.  They let us down on torture allegations.  They’ve let us down over-and-over again for the longest time.  It predates Mr. Bush’s presidency and it has outlived it.  The big newspapers and the networks and the other big news outlets have routinely relied on press conferences and government contacts instead of real reporting, which is simply awful and lazy journalism.  All the actual journalism that gets done gets shunted into a special category called “investigative journalism” and is done mostly by magazines rather than newspapers and news shows.  All the MSM really does is support the status quo, which is what state-supported media are supposed to do.  If they are not asking questions about everybody in power all the time (and this is where Fox News also misses the mark:  they coddle one side and attack the other) they are not doing their jobs.  they have stopped being reporters and started being merely typists and apologists.

I think that the MSM can either adapt or die.  I think that journalism suffers from being made into a profession instead of a calling.  I think reporters should dig and question and be cynical about politicians and aloof from them.  I think that finding ways of supporting them in their current condition is bad for democracy and bad for the Republic.

The Proof Is in the Posting

As the following shows, I submitted a comment to The Times at 2:25 PM on Tuesday, June 23rd.  I made this capture at 11:00 AM on Wednesday, June 24th.  Why other people’s comments get in but mine seem to routinely get lost or disposed of is anyone’s guess.  Purists may also now compare what is posted below to my previous post to see how the comment changed in the rewriting.

UPDATE: The above comment finally made it past the gatekeeper.  The first comment I submitted seems to have disappeared into the aether.

When Illiterates Try to Read Between the Lines

I tried twice yesterday to get comments on a New York Times blog called “Moral of the Story” by a fellow named Randy Cohen.  The blog purports to be dedicated to looking at stories from the news through the lens of ethics. (Never mind that ethics and morals are two distinct things and that people who are ethical aren’t always perceived as moral while folks who are moral are oftentimes not ethical.) As of this writing, neither comment has made it through the censors, which, for the purposes of this post, is neither here nor there. The blog post in question concerns the recent public relations tug-of-war between David Letterman and Sarah Palin.

First, let me say that the whole thing is a tempest in a teapot. I can’t really imagine a less important news story. The situation is essentially this: Letterman told a joke–in some eyes a rotten joke–poorly, and Palin reacted in an absurd manner. There is no winner in this tiff, especially not the great American public.

Sprinkled amongst the comments generated by this post were a number that berated Letterman for joking about Willow Palin being raped, a thing which he did not do. Being a lover of the English language and of reasoning as an avocation, I wrote the following as my second comment (the first comment is lost to history):

There is not only a semantic but a legal difference between rape and statutory rape. In the one case, one participant in an allegedly sexual act is unwilling. The act is forced upon that person without their consent, whether they have the legal authority to give consent or not. In the other case, a person is engaged in a sexual act at an age that the legislature has determined is below the age at which informed consent can be given. The person’s willingness to engage in the act is irrelevant. They are deemed too young to be trusted to knowingly consent to such an act.

Conflating the two does no one any good. In fact, it cheapens the harm done and the injury felt by the victims of rape, those who were unwillingly violated by another.  However, in this matter and for the sake of making a few third-rate political points, it is convenient for Governor Palin and her acolytes to muddy the two very distinct terms into one so as to misstate the intent and effect of the joke. And if anyone actually thought that Letterman was referring to Willow Palin when he made that joke, you should be ashamed of yourself. You’ve got a dirty mind.

Finally, it is hypocritical to worry about protecting the children when both Willow and Bristol Palin have been repeatedly used as props and weapons by their parents. If the folks who are so worried about them are true to their word, they would find these kids a foster home.

(I have slightly revised this comment to remove spelling and other such errors and to amplify the argument in a couple of places.)

As I’ve trudged through life, I’ve been subjected to a long stream of numbskulls and dimwits who disparaged “book learning” in favor of “street smarts” and who decried the need for a large vocabulary (originally called the use of “twenty-five cent words,” inflation has them valued at somewhere around five dollars these days) and the subtle use of language. And yet the entire line of thinking that goes into jumping to the conclusion that Letterman was joking about anyone being raped shows exactly why book learning and a varied vocabulary and a subtle sense of language are virtues, not vices. For without understanding how words work, without understanding the difference between reasoning and believing, a demagogue can mislead and citizens are reduced to the status of cattle. (I made a similar point in an earlier post.)

Despite what is believed in some quarters, this nation was not founded by men who had faith in religious belief.  They had faith in the ability of humans to reason their way through problems.  They understood that reason elevated the member of a mob to be a functioning citizen.  Reason allowed them to be governed rather than ruled.

QI or Not QI, that Is the Question

A few months ago, I participated in a minor kerfluffle on Facebook concerning the British quiz show QI and its potential with an American audience.  (The Facebook page dedicated to getting QI to America can be found here.  There is an online petition here.)  The question raised was whether Americans would understand QI.  And in fairness, I will say up front that the person who raised this question did not do so under the assumption that Americans are too stupid to understand it.  Her point was that the differences in culture would make the enjoying of it impossible.

I disagree.

I’ve been watching loads of British shows over the course of the last couple of years,starting with QI, and I can say without hesitation that my never having gotten closer to Great Britain than Horseneck Beach in Massachusetts has had very little effect on my ability to enjoy these shows.  Do I sometimes not get a reference?  Sure.  And that’s why God made Wikipedia.  In fact, I’ve started watching a wonderful British panel show, one that should be far too obtuse for me to get, called Have I Got News for You.  This is a comedy panel game show that makes fun of whatever has been in the news over the course of the previous week.  (I also listen to the podcast of the show that inspired HIGNFY way back when, The News Quiz.)

As a result, I now have a working knowledge of the major figures in British politics and find that I can keep up pretty easily, only occasionally pausing in order to look something up.  I already know that every week is another low point in the premiership of Gordon Brown.  I know that Hazel Blears is short and John Prescott is fat and incomprehensible.  I know that Lord Mandelsohn has been sacked four times and that Alistair Darling is, well, Alistair Darling.  I know about David Cameron and Ann Widdecombe and Boris Johnson from the Tories and Nick Clegg and Charles Kennedy and Lembit Opik from the Lib-Dems.  It’s not that hard.

If you had to ask me which British shows I’ve seen that stand the least chance of finding an audience in America, I would guess that it would just about anything created by Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, although I’d like to think that I’m completely wrong about that.  From Vic Reeves Big Night Out to Catterick and beyond, they have created a body of work that is surreal, unique, funny, awful, wonderful, contemptuous, compassionate, and strange.  I’m not completely certain of this (and I’m never certain about much of anything when it comes to Vic and Bob), but they might just be great artists.

One of the great misapprehensions of modern times is encapsulted in Bernard Shaw’s well known joke that the United States and Great Britain are  “two countries separated by a common language.”  Like so many of Shaw’s aphorisms, it is more facile than it is true.  In fact we are actually two inflections of the same Anglophone culture, siblings in the family of Anglophone nations.  And, like many siblings, we tend to emphasize the few differences rather than the many similarities.

It’s unfortunate.  I would love to see QI here.  I’d love to see Have I Got News for You and The Fast Show and Bang! Bang! It’s Reeves and Mortimer! here.

The Haiku Form

Over the last few weeks, I have started writing poems in the haiku form on Facebook not quite every day, but most days.  I don’t claim that they are good or even true haikus (the subject matter is wrong and they lack the depth necessary), but I am having fun with it.  I’m using is as a little game to work on my mental acuity.  Just trying to delay mental decline as long as possible.

Since Facebook is such an impermanent thing, I’ve decided to collect the haikus, probably on a weekly basis, here.  The following are all the haikus I’ve harvested from Facebook so far.

Suicide squirrels/arrayed across the pavement/awake from the dream.

Stress levels rising./Self-imposed tensions are worst/when I am thinking.

Teams of aliens/burnishing middle class lawns./The status quo lives.

A woman’s blowout/occurs up at the corner./A stranger fixes it.

Haiku destroy’d by/camp scheduling error./Must now write anew.

A random lazy day/occurring because of kid./Will I handle it?

I am back at work./Watch the videos below./Excellent pieces.

(The videos referred to are here, here, and here.)

Haiku exercise/meant to keep the brain active./Not merely insane.

Think of Orson Welles,/not as a stereotype,/but a baritone.

No inspiration./Cloudy thoughts in a clear mind./Work is the problem.

Creative drive is/flickering back on today./Words appearing now.

You cannot go back./The same self is different./Time is quite tricky.

Now I’m on Twitter./I never would have thought so/in my days of youth.

We’re off to Greenville/for fun and also baseball./Good times are ahead.

Two pale pickup trucks,/one one place, the other another./ Were they related?

That’s all until next time.

And Why Is It That Everybody Hates Lawyers?

Take this snippet from The New York Times as an example:

[Hugh Verrier, chairman of White & Case,] suffered a depressive 2008 holiday party at Cipriani’s, which had half the budget of the prior year’s $500,000 event — a Neroesque fete at the United Nations with fireworks and a band.

Poor baby.  He had to make do with a Christmas party that only cost a quarter of a million dollars.  Speaking as someone whose work Christmas party was a potluck held on the premises, it is my considered opinion that Mr. Verrier can go fuck himself.

What’s That Smell?

J.D. Salinger has gotten himself involved in another lawsuit.  It is alleged that a new book is going to be published that takes up the story of Holden Caulfield some fifty years later.  It is further alleged that this book was written by one John David California, which is supposed to be a pseudonym.  It is also alleged that it will be published by a firm called Windupbird Publishing Ltd in England.  Mr. California is alleged to be an American living in Sweden.  For some reason, I keep thinking that this is going to turn out to be a hoax.

It’s more a feeling than anything.  Perhaps it was because The Telegraph, an undoubtedly British publication, refers to the publisher as “an obscure company allegedly based in London[.]“  Perhaps it is because the photo of Mr. California in the Telegraph looks like the picture of a Swede.  Maybe it’s because the pseudonym is supposed to be JD California, which has hoax written all over it.

Maybe I’m wrong.  I’ve been wrong before.  But I can almost guarantee that there’s going to be some twist to this story before the book ever comes out.  If it ever does.

More British Comedy

This time, the focus is on acting.  Although I find this sketch to be hilarious.  It also contains language that some may find offensive, although a lot of folks I knew in Rhode Island wouldn’t even recognize tht there was any expletive used at all.

This features Catherine Tate playing a recurring character of hers, Joannie Taylor, who is known by the British term for grandmother, Nan.  She does an amazing job assuming this character.  She really becomes Nan.  And she’s matched step-for-step by Kathy Burke as her daughter, Diane.  In fact, I think that Kathy is fucking brilliant here.  But let’s see what you think:

The Stotts

A couple of quick notes for the following.  1)  The Stotts are characters created by Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer for Vic Reeves’s Big Night Out.  2)This is a segment from a subsequent show, Bang!  Bang!  It’s Reeves and Mortimer. 3) I find this and other interviews of celebrities the Stotts did unbearably funny.  4) The word “minge” is British slang for the female pudenda.  That is all.

The Meridian Post

Speaking of language, there is a faux pas that has long made me cringe, but which reached its apotheosis in a voicemail message I received yesterday from Comcast.

You see, one of the ignorant things people do with English is that they talk (and usually write) about scheduling some event at 12 a.m. or 12 p.m.  Now, this is wrong on two counts.  First, what they don’t understand is that “a.m.” and “p.m.” are abbreviations for two terms in Latin, ante meridian and post meridian.  Meridian means noon, ante means before, and post means after.  The problem with this is that when people say “12 p.m,” they are saying that the time specified is 12 hours after noon, and since what they usually want to say is “noon,” they are wrong by 12 hours.  Noon can be neither 12 hours before or after itself.  Midnight can be either.

Which brings us to the other problem.  There already exist two easy, common words for these times:  noon and midnight.  If one wishes to refer to the time in the middle of the day, all one need do is say “noon” or “12 noon” (which is redundant but acceptable) or write “12 N.”  For the time at the middle of the night, the formulations would be “midnight,” “12 midnight,” or “12 M.”  Easy, n’est pas?

I’ve become more forgiving concerning the evolution of our language as I’ve grown old and weary.  I used to be against the use of “hopefully” in place of “I hope” and still try to maintain that standard personally, but have come to realize that the battle is lost.  Usage has won out over the strict adherence to what are, ultimately, arbitrary rules.  People hear “hopefully” and understand “I hope” without missing a step, and English is more than elastic enough to absorb it.

And one of the problems with “12 a.m.” and “12 p.m.” is that there lurks in them a small element of confusion.  Which is which again?  I’ve seen uses of both for both noon and midnight.  Sure, it is generally the case that people will use “12 a.m.” for midnight and “12 p.m.” for noon, but isn’t there always a moment in reading such a thing in which you stop and ask yourself, quickly, silently, which is which?  This is never the case with noon and midnight.  They are clear, easy, and unpretentious.

And what brought this confusion into final focus for me, what has turned this more into a cause than simply an irritation was the message I got from Comcast.  The recorded lady very helpfully wanted me to know that Comcast was upgrading the lines in our area and that this would improve our service.  Good enough.  I couldn’t be happier.  However, she went on to inform me that these improvements would happen sometime after “12 a.m. midnight.”  And while I did get a good laugh out of how idiotic this formulation was, I knew also, in my soul, that it was time for action.

I’m not sure yet what sort of action this should be.  I’m a proponent of both nonviolence and basic manners, so slapping offenders across the face and saying “Don’t be stupid; it’s midnight” doesn’t seem like the proper way forward.  I would love to hear some useful suggestions.

In the meantime, I would appreciate it if anyone who reads this post would make a small effort to use “noon” and “midnight” when they have the chance and if they would also spread the word.  You just might end up saving some bureaucrat at Comcast a packet of embarrassment.