Recently in Journalism/News Media Category

I have a subscription to the online version of the Wall Street Journal and I subscribe to an email list that sends three news updates each day: morning, noon, and - wait for it - evening. Those updates usually lead off with breaking stories about events of widespread interest - you know, disasters like earthquakes in Chile or Charlie Rangel in Washington, and economic/financial news of import such as the content of the latest Fed Beige Book* or Tiger's dwindling sponsorships.

But today must be a slow news day, because the noon update led off with this story - A Game of Tag Breaks Out Between London's Graffiti Elite (think Hatfields and McCoys armed with Rust-Oleum)  - and the evening wrap has this in the lead: Should This Move Be Banned? (an article about a "devastating penalty-kick" employed by the Brazilian World Cup soccer team). This had the effect of pushing down more important news like the status of Mideast peace talks ("promising and yet inevitably failing") and Leno's whupping of Letterman on his first night back ("promising and yet inevitably failing").

I'm not complaining, mind you (although I am eagerly awaiting a report of a devastating penalty kick delivered to Letterman; now that would be news). But it does make one wonder if the Journal is going for a different image, sort of a "Drive your Veyron to a 7-11 for a raspberry-lime Slurpee" vibe.

*"Beige Book"? Talk about someone whose image could use some sprucing up.

I apologize in advance for another political post, especially to those who don't care about the Texas governor's election, but politics are like a tarbaby...once you get a finger in the mess, it's hard to make a clean break.

In case you haven't heard, Debra Medina's interview on Glenn Beck's radio program yesterday turned out to be an absolute train wreck, both for her and for Beck (although she had a lot more to lose than him, given that he specializes in causing train wrecks). If you missed it, you might want to take a moment to read the transcript posted on Beck's website. I'll wait here.

*whistling* *thumb-twiddling* *heel-rocking*

Pretty cringe-inducing, huh? Now, take a look at what Medina meant to say.

This stands out pretty clearly:
In order to get a true assessment of the damage done to Medina's campaign for governor, contrast the preceding statement with the Associated Press headline that appears today in newspapers around the state: "Governor candidate Debra Medina: 'Good arguments' US involved in 9/11." While the phrase "good arguments" in that headline are indeed taken directly from Medina's comments, they are also removed from the context that she provided for them: she isn't in possession of all the facts about 9/11, and citizens have the right to question the federal government about everything. She goes on to say that she's not taking a position due to her not having all the facts, and, further, that the issue is irrelevant to the Texas gubernatorial campaign.

Medina's appeal to me all along has been twofold: her passion for state's rights and strict adherence to the US Constitution, and the fact that she's not a career politician. Unfortunately, the latter factor proved to be detrimental yesterday as she gave an unpolished and, frankly, a bumbling answer to a question that someone more experienced would have quickly dismissed. She compounded the problem by going on a tangent about screening her staff that served only to make her sound evasive and unsure. Having heard her speak in person, I know that neither of those descriptions are accurate, but given the absence of nuance in reportage, they're damaging beyond estimation.

The Texas blogosphere is hotly divided today between those who are defending Medina as being honest almost to a fault, and the victim of a nasty, carefully planned setup by Beck, and those who feel that we're at last now seeing the true candidate, an unskilled person in over her head and aligned with fringe political elements.

To me, this was a gigantic misstep for Medina, one that will hurt her already slim chances of getting elected. I was disappointed at her response (while at the same time being outraged at Beck's behavior; but then, he's not a journalist, he's an "entertainer," although his idea of entertainment and mine aren't even in the same universe), and I'm not sure there's enough time before the election for damage control.

Even worse, it's a distraction from the really important issues that should be driving this election:  ensuring that Texas continues to be a leader in preserving and honoring the constitutional rights of states, and ensuring that private property owners in Texas are not overly burdened by governmental interference. To the extent that the Beck interview damages Medina's chances to make that happen, we'll all be losers.

Drawing upon the documentary film Airplane!, my reaction to yesterday's Super Bowl MMCXLVIIIXI was that I picked the wrong day to quit live-blogging the TV ads. It would have been so easy to assign the coveted Ant Ratings. There were about 30 1- or 2-Ant ads, and only two that I thought were worth watching again.

My favorite occurred near the beginning of the game. It was the Doritos dog shock collar ad. I always like to see mistreated canines wreak revenge on their tormentors (and gain the Doritos in the process). My second favorite was the Volkswagen "slug bug" ad, which was entertaining throughout but hit the perfect note with Stevie Wonder calling slug on Tracy Morgan at the very end.

I'd give an honorable mention to the E*Trade "milkaholic" baby ad.

The GoDaddy.com ads were as forgettable as I expected, although in hindsight, I don't think they reached the same level of sleaziness as in past years. GoDaddy's ad strategy continues to mystify me. I have a hard time believing that they're hitting their target audience with those ads, and even if they do succeed in driving a ton of traffic to their website (which is generally one of the marks of a successful ad campaign), I doubt those clicks turn into revenue. I continue to believe that GoDaddy's founder, Bob Parsons, is just a DOM who likes hanging out with cute young chicks. But, hey...it's his $2.5 million per thirty seconds and if that's how he wants to spend it...

Actually, the edgiest ad from a sexual content perspective came from a completely unexpected source: Motorola. Megan Fox (Megan Fox!), pondering the effect of posting a photo of herself in the bathtub, with the result being several scenes that no parent really wants to try to explain to a ten year old.

The Focus on the Family ad with Tim Tebow and his mom was sweet and funny, and the controversy about airing it seems to prove that some people are simply born to be offended.

The one glaring aspect of the broadcast yesterday was the glaring product placements that CBS inserted at every turn. It even extended to the halftime show. Think it was coincidental that The Who played the theme songs from all three CSIs? Their discography has hundreds of songs and yet those three were prominently featured. (Yeah, I'm just bitter because Magic Bus is my favorite Who song.)

Speaking of music, Carrie Underwood's rendition of the National Anthem was spine-tingling...up until the last note. Yikes. Still, I nominate her for next year's halftime show.

However disappointing the ads were this year, the game itself more than made up for them. Going in, I had no skin in the game, not really caring too much who won, but expecting to see a well-played game by the two best teams in the NFL. Well, if you put my feet to the fire (I have very tender feet, you know), I'd have leaned slightly in the direction of Nawleans, for the obvious sentimental reasons. When the Saints went down early by ten points, I thought, "oh no, another overhyped game ruined by expectations," but that was obviously premature.

I felt bad for Manning, throwing that late interception, but he's had his day in the sun and Drew Brees was on fire. It was just his time, and he made a fine and gracious victor.

I can't help wondering, though, what Indianapolis would have done had they scored a touchdown instead of throwing the game losing interception. Would they have taken the safe way out and kicked the extra point, and hope to win the game in overtime? Or would they have considered how absolutely unstoppable Brees had become, and not wanted to gamble their season on a coin toss...and thus gone for two points? We'll never know, of course, but if the tables had been turned, I suspect the Saints coach, Sean Payton, would have gone for two. And, no doubt, made it.

Of course, in closing, I'd just like to remind the Saints and their fans everywhere of one little fact: the Cowboys still kicked your rears in your own house. I'd like to think that that game provided some education that led to your ultimate victory. No need to thank us. ;-)

Back in the Golden Years of Blogging, around 2001, a practice known as "fisking" came about, and it provided many hours of enjoyable snarkiness. If you're relatively knew to blogging, or if you have an actual life, you may not be familiar with the term, which is defined on Wikipedia as:

I don't see much fisking nowadays (which could be attributed to the fact that I don't spend much time reading political blogs) and I miss it just a bit. So it's good to know that the practice hasn't vanished completely, and in fact has been adopted by the edgier members of the Legacy Media.

Following is a clip of Glenn Beck applying a proper fisking to the infinitely annoying Arianna Huffington. Now, I'm not a big GB fan; his style occasionally approaches the Infinite Annoyance that Huffington has somehow managed to exceed. Nevertheless, our ideologies have much in common, and he's an equal opportunity skewerer when it comes to calling out chumps on both sides of the political aisle (and, believe me, there are plenty of them...enough to fill out, say, a whole branch or two of federal government). And, as he shows in the following video, Beck knows how to administer a proper fisking. Enjoy. (Link via Little Miss Attila)

I watched a couple of national news shows this morning (NBC and CBS) and both of them devoted a major chunk of coverage to the "breaking news" about goings-on in the wacky world of Tiger Woods. They spent a lot of time rehashing the golfer's alleged infidelities, and dissecting every possible aspect of this morning's ambulance run to Tiger's home.

I don't have any problem with the coverage, even though I'm tired of the whole story. But what struck me as more than a little hypocritical was the way both networks referred to the "tabloid" aspects of the media coverage, as if those seedy print publications were guilty of sensationalism, while the broadcast giants were simply providing good and decent journalistic services.

In this instance, the only difference between the two forms of media is that the tabloid publications at least serve a useful purpose if one has a bird cage or fish in need of wrapping.