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Early morning musings
Apr. 29th, 2001 07:28 amAh, 6:40 in the morining, rarely seen and even more rarely appreciated. So why am I up this early you ask? Well, I live in an old, shitty dorm (Oh, pardon me, I meant "Residence Hall") that currently has a faulty sensor on the fire alarm. If I'm going to be awakened at 5:00 in the morning I'm at least going to make good use of it and go see the sunrise at the beach. I won't have too many more opportunities to do that. Then there's the trip to 7's for coffee. I'm actually over my residual anger over the alarms (Note the plural there) just based on the fact that they had Blueberry coffee at 7's (tastes A LOT better than it sounds). Life can be good at 6:40 in the morning. Rarely, but it happens.
So I'm up, what to do? Been cruising some interesting media accountability sites, an issue that's been on my brain as of late. Found one that I basically see as what my brother would do if he ever became a journalist. Kind of a mix of The Onion with actual looks at the real world. Who needs to make up the news when you have stuff like this?
Of course there's always those going on about the horrors of the left-wing, liberal press. There are those that think Dan Rather was completely biased towards the left when he said:
"President Bush insisted today that he was not caving in to big money contributors, big-time lobbyists, and overall industry pressure when he broke a campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. But the air was thick today with accusations from people who believe that’s exactly what happened."
OK, let's look at this statement. Did President Bush insist he wasn't caving in? Why, yes he did. Were people accusing him otherwise? Why yes they were. So where's the bias? As far as I can see, this a completely objective and accurate statement. What are these people bitching about? The media isn't giving Bush a bad name, he's doing that fine and dandy on his own.
Although there are always the old stand-bys of Project Censored and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting to fall back on, there are some highly specialized "media watch dog groups." For instance there's Truth in America who, despite their high-faluting name, are completely focused on the media's portrayl of the Monica Lewinsky scandal...OK folks, let it go. Or if you really want highly specialized, and highly opposing sites check out Palestine Media Watch and CAMERA. The U.S. media apparently has it all wrong. We're too biased towards the Israelis...no, the Palestinians...no, the Israelis...no, the Palestinians...my head hurts!!
Hmmmmm...it's been about an hour since I started this. No I don't type that slow, just been multi-tasking. Terry Pratchett is a-calling me and so is my homework. Let's start placing bets as to who wins.
So I'm up, what to do? Been cruising some interesting media accountability sites, an issue that's been on my brain as of late. Found one that I basically see as what my brother would do if he ever became a journalist. Kind of a mix of The Onion with actual looks at the real world. Who needs to make up the news when you have stuff like this?
Of course there's always those going on about the horrors of the left-wing, liberal press. There are those that think Dan Rather was completely biased towards the left when he said:
"President Bush insisted today that he was not caving in to big money contributors, big-time lobbyists, and overall industry pressure when he broke a campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. But the air was thick today with accusations from people who believe that’s exactly what happened."
OK, let's look at this statement. Did President Bush insist he wasn't caving in? Why, yes he did. Were people accusing him otherwise? Why yes they were. So where's the bias? As far as I can see, this a completely objective and accurate statement. What are these people bitching about? The media isn't giving Bush a bad name, he's doing that fine and dandy on his own.
Although there are always the old stand-bys of Project Censored and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting to fall back on, there are some highly specialized "media watch dog groups." For instance there's Truth in America who, despite their high-faluting name, are completely focused on the media's portrayl of the Monica Lewinsky scandal...OK folks, let it go. Or if you really want highly specialized, and highly opposing sites check out Palestine Media Watch and CAMERA. The U.S. media apparently has it all wrong. We're too biased towards the Israelis...no, the Palestinians...no, the Israelis...no, the Palestinians...my head hurts!!
Hmmmmm...it's been about an hour since I started this. No I don't type that slow, just been multi-tasking. Terry Pratchett is a-calling me and so is my homework. Let's start placing bets as to who wins.
