Posted in Random Musings
We Make Shit Up
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I wonder who will teach the journalism classes of the future? What former journalistic superstars will take to the colleges and teach the future writers of our country how to do a credible job? If we are going to take from our current pool of news hounds, the future of journalism is in grave danger.
It seems everyone has given into the temptation to become the next National Enquirer. After all the National Enquirer just got nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Today I was surfing through the Huffington Post (a website that usually does a fairly decent job of reporting news) and an attention grabbing headline jumped out at me, “State Senator Caught Looking At Porn During Abortion Bill Debate.”
I need to be honest here, I don’t have a problem with porn. You will not find me on the street corner with a sign bemoaning the eroding morals of America. If you want to partake in the viewing of consenting adults performing sex acts on each other be my guest, just do it in private. When I read the headline I became superbly angry at another member of our congress making a jackass out of himself in front of the world.
I clicked on the article with a slow jolt of anger crawling up my spine. The first thing that jumped out at me was the picture of Republican Mike Bennett looking at several women in bathing suits. The women had misplaced the top halves of their suits. The article then goes on to explain that Senator Bennett opened an email, saw the naked breasts, shouted “my eyes, my eyes” (okay I made that part up) and quickly closed the email.
According to the Huffington Post opening up an email which turns out to be spam of naked breasts and quickly turning it off constitutes porn. First of all women’s breasts are not porn. Second of all they confirmed in their OWN story he shut the email immediately upon seeing the picture. Hardly the act of a congressman drooling over porn. Misleading sensationalism is all this was. The headline really should have read, “We Make Shit Up With Reckless Disregard to the Truth.” If you can’t make your own headlines fit your own story find a new line of work damn it.
You want to know the worse thing about this whole incident? There was actually a story here but because it appears most journalist are getting their degrees out of Cracker Jack boxes they missed it. When the Senator was asked what happened he said, “I was just sitting there, bored as they were debating the abortion bill.”
Sitting there bored! Are you kidding me? We pay our Senators good money to actually pay attention when important things are happening on the Senate floor. As a Senator you represent a lot of people who are counting on you making informed decisions. On being an active participant in the debate. How about trying to give a shit as they are passing laws. Not Senator Bennett though. After he got through checking his email he started watching videos of dogs swimming. Way to go Huffington Post, miss the real story. More taxpayer money swirling down the big gaping hole of our government’s checkbook.
>Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy covers pretty much everything that is wrong with the story.There wasn't ever a time when accurate reporting was the main objective of a newspaper – it's a medium propelled by advertising, so the gaudier and more simplistic they keep the material, the larger an audience will be attracted to the paper. Same reason that the "Sick Computer Games Must Be Banned" crap was plastered over the front of papers back in the nineties – it sells papers.
>Superb! I agree 100%. I am so tired of people making stupid shit "headline" news. I don't care that Paris lost 30lbs, I don't care if another celebrity got a D.U.I and I don't care how many woman Tiger took in his bed. It hardly is worth breaking into my normal programing. And I'm so tired of News headlining one thing and letting the facts of the article slip through the cracks.I'm glad someone out there is paying attention.Thanks for posting.
>Good post, as usual.However, having sat through a number of government meetings, I have to disagree with you about the "elected official gets bored during a debate" means taxpayer money is getting wasted. I'm so glad nobody is looking over my shoulder during some of these government meetings. Even the most important of them have a lot of wasted time when people are just talking to hear themselves talk.Democracy is an ugly process, but it beats all the alternatives!I agree with you about the Fake News, though. And with the person posting about how it has pretty much always been like this.As with government, I think the American people are getting the press they deserve.
>If I were ever to have a chance of paying attention in a debate over a bill, I would absolutely need to be doing something else at the same time. If I werent checking email or surfing or chatting, I would not be paying attention to what's going on at all. I'd be daydreaming and zoning out into space. Its very possible, and given that there are a lot of people like me, even likely that that was the situation here. I feel the reason a lot of people don’t pay attention or get things done in classes/meetings/presentations/work etc is that they are forced to only do on one thing in the erroneous opinion that it would make them more focused, when in reality, it makes them less. But youre right about the original point of your post. Its dumb of them to say that.