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QUOTE (kapkomet @ May 9, 2009 -> 01:44 AM) I think the term he uses (activist) for media is what is important. But, what is an activist? Someone who wants to actually dig for the truth, or only stop at what the surface will tell you? And behind that, if they stop at the surface, at the heart of it all, what profit can this generate a newspaper? I would contend that "lazy" journalism is the cause of the tendency toward biases. It's too easy! I think integrity AND the ability to accurately describe a story is a lost art. Editorial staff changes and such are probably pretty important, no? How much influence does editorial staff play in these decisions? I would hate to think that we need to have "bias" beyond what exists. It's sort of a sad thing, to me. Well, not bias for bias sakes, I think themes. Okay, I mean, eliminate balance - not meaning you don't give the other side an opportunity to respond should there be two sides in a story - rather, just because you write a negative story doesn't mean you have to balance it with a positive story. I think what I appreciate is the idea of a theme the paper hammers. The best stuff that happened in the tribune was Blago, OBama-Rezko and (back a little) the death row inmates scandal. They took a while to develop, but it was stories the Tribune owned and it forced politicians to answer for them. I wish the same effect could be had of Daley.

And for the record, clearly, CLEARLy, the most eggregious thing was ordering a burger medium well. WTF. Ketchup on a burger is disgusting. Spicy mustard is soooo much better. So 1/2 ain't bad. Nothing gets more tiring than the equivocation done by the "conservatives" on this board.

QUOTE (lostfan @ May 8, 2009 -> 04:10 PM) They do that to Sarah Palin routinely. lol. I remember this editorial four years ago from a white house reporter really pissed that they had to keep correcting Bush's language when he was actually saying the complete wrong words every day.

ahahahahah OH my god. I need to graduate. I've been having the weirdest episodes, but I thought this was funny, JUST HAPPENED. I can't work unless I'm under the gun. We have a paper due for History of Brazil today. I thought I had until 5 p.m. today. So I'm just f***ing around on soxtalk, and TPM and not doing anything, then I decide to double check the time. I see: IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO GET ME THE PAPER BY 11:59 p.m. MAY 8. And in my infinite hungover wisdom, I forget that whole AM PM morning afternoon difference, and panic the f*** out. I'm freaking out, I have to solve this, I have half an hour to write 6 pages. f***. SO I call him. Never thinking twice. The Message was as follows: "Hey Professor Draper, I know this is a call you don't want to hear and I don't want to make, but I've been really wrapped up in the paper trying to finish this story, and I wrote four pages last night, and double checked the time thinking I had until 5 and saw that, and I know you said it was our responsibility and we've had a lot of time, but I just checked and saw it was due at 11:59 p.m., pm, pm, haha, oh god, well, uhhhh, just wow, let's just forget about this message then, right? I'll be seeing you at the review sesh, with a reall nice...I'm just going to get off now" Didn't wait to see if I could delete the message. HAHA. Fuuuuck myyyyy liiiiife.

Soxtalk posters, This, unfortunately, is a long post, but I do say possibly interesting? I decided it would be best to put all my thoughts down first, because I fear the repercussion of merely putting the article down without placing what my ACTUAL question is. ------ Yes, I know, another thread by me on journalism. I might as well just put up a journalism thread for me to muse to myself. but so anyway, longtime columnist and reporter Walter Pincus throws his hat into the ring for the decline of newspapers. http://www.cjr.org/essay/newspaper_narcissism_1.php?page=all Ignoring what I find to be a useless and outmoded argument about those darn fangled Web sites! I find interesting the first half and his discussion about what newspapers were. (yes Walter, newspapers make 10x more in print advertising in online, but when the median age of yr. print readers is 60+ and yr. talking about writing for your readers, how the hell is that going to attract more young people to read print. It would be an AARP manual.) His point was this: The majority of the newspapers were family owned, and started by businessman hoping to get a voice. They had agendas (and for this, don't always think Democrat-Republican, I'll give an example soon hereafter), but also deep stakes into the product of their paper. This was before the surge of 40% profits. When I thought of the problem of the conglomeration of media by big companies hoping to rake in a sure 20% profit, I've always thought of it as a problem for a diff. reason. I thought the lack of hands on interest in the paper, and mere worry about profits led to a lack of creativity in the downfall, when the solutions were to just cut printing and personnel costs. But so then lets make it a point of Political agenda (I really don't want this to turn into a sophomoric argument of "well all newspapers already have an agenda blah blah blah" so check it at the door, assuming anyone replies to this post, to which I'll put that at 5% chance.) His point was that when paper's had an agenda it wasn't necessarily a bad thing, it presumed people would have access to different viewpoints and could make up their minds to that. The current model tries to have one paper be a one-stop shop, showing all viewpoints in one article to make up your mind from there. He states that this has lead to boring reporting that doesn't ever get beneath an issue. It's hard to argue that news has NOT become saturated with mere balance, okay let this guy get a couple quotes and this woman get a couple quotes and there's a story! -So this makes the Fox news model okay. And I wonder if that is a valid point, one that I bring forward and he ignored, I have no doubt this Pincus fellow probably loathes fox news. BUt take this, Fox takes on a story such as teabagging or rev. wright and runs it ad nauseum. Say no other outlet covers it. They get thorough onto the story and it's presented into the national conversation regardless of whether everyone watched it. The players (Obama, White House) are forced to answer to it at that point. Say MSNBC, counters this coverage of their own, deriding the actors (teabaggers, conservative blogs for Wright thing) and shows why they think it doesn't matter. Both view points would enter the dialogue. Citizens could decide. Two sets of reporting with agendas, and could it lead to more truth? In town here we have the Columbia Daily Tribune. Family owned. I work for the Missourian, runs through the school, both serve the community demographic (I say this to contrast it with the school paper). The owner of the paper here is on many boards throughout the town. In a series of editorials he continued to support a measure allowing the city council to enact eminent domain over a piece of land that the owners contested. He never was as transparent as he should've been. We took the side, though I don't think it was discussed as agenda, more skepticism, of the landowners and "was this necessary?" In the end they found a more suitable piece of land that made so much more sense and eminent domain not needed. It would be easy for me to deride the owner of the Trib for his agenda, but it created interesting dialogue in the community and the people helped decide what I consider the right move. (I doubt we had anything to do with it, nobody reads our paper, more conversation in general was raised). ------ This is something I would've never thought about before this piece. I think it's inevitable that we may see the rise of more openly partisan media. IT goes against everything I've been taught, but perhaps as long as there is good reporting and it isn't misleading - and with the access everyone has to so many sources - it would maybe be better? I don't know the answer, but it's an interesting question. Sorry for the long post.

QUOTE (CanOfCorn @ May 6, 2009 -> 05:30 PM) Was that a typo??? haha, I wonder if he actually did say that and the reporter's just making him seem like an idiot.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...VIEWS/905069997 Read it. Notice the difference between a movie blogger's snarkiness and Ebert. Even as he continues his tangent about the implausibility of the science, he ties it into how it works as a lazy plot device. But more than that, he realizes that other people could see his hanging onto the science of a science FICTION movie as frivilous and acknowledges it. He doesn't rail into the film for railings sake over something many might not give a s*** about. Edited following sentence: To find the absence of righteous indignation in movie review's nowadays is refreshing. "Look at how many way's I can say this movie sucks!"

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ May 7, 2009 -> 11:52 AM) Abrams must not have dropped a C note in Eberts pocket at the viewing Oh give me a break. I don't think people appreciate how good of a movie reviewer Ebert is. You won't come across it from his stupid star reviews or his TV show, but his writing is phenomenal. Even in movies he doesn't like he explains why he didn't like it and what was to like, or what people could take away liking from it. And he's a great writer. His actual newspaper reviews speak very eloquently about a film in a way a review should work, helping people decide whether to see it or not. He's had reviews where clearly he was not thrilled about, but written in a way that I knew I could like it. I love ebert.

Quentin would have to go another 2-3 weeks for me to be worried. Dude is still young and everyone goes through slumps. *Not an accurate comparison* but is anybody worried about Jimmy Rollins start? Happens to everyone.

I think it's kind of silly to use the term "Michael paved the way for lebron" that's not what was meant by keeping the context of the era in mind. There would've been a lebron regardless of a MJ, other players played the same way they just weren't as good. There is an intangible viewing quality to watching Michael Jordan play. It's not just, he was so much better. It's that he was so creative and you watched him and it was something you'd never seen before. He was doing things on the fly no one else could've thought up with 15 minutes and knowing what the defense was going to do. It was otherworldly.

QUOTE (shipps @ May 8, 2009 -> 01:41 AM) Just think.......ball field. hahahahahaha awesome.

"3) Spare the organization of any racial tenstion because Alexei is... and Beckham is... (do I really need to spell it out?)" was fantastic.

The fact that he's over 50% is a little discouraging for trying to whip him into shape.

QUOTE (goblue5699 @ May 7, 2009 -> 03:36 PM) Animal Collective are going to be on Letterman tonight. They should play #1 again for the hell of it. haha, that was so ballsy to play the first time. Despite that wouldn't mind My Girls or Brothersport.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ May 7, 2009 -> 02:47 PM) Ridge says he is not running for the Senate seat.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ May 7, 2009 -> 03:20 PM) Finally got around to downloading The Room. Plan to watch it on the way to Seattle later this month. Can't wait.

Re assuring thread. Come August, the plan in motion is to move to Sao Paulo to teach English/free lance/learn Portuguese. When I come back, weep.

*head explodes*

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 7, 2009 -> 01:27 PM) Tom Ridge still may have a shot at him in the general. I don't know, not if labor backs Specter. They are pretty big in PA. SoxfaninPA big.

They gotta make their money before their patent runs out and you can get 200 for $5 and America will be renamed BONER LAND

jeeze can't believe this wasn't covered yet. It makes me especially happy when these measures are done through the legislature and not in the courts. Both are preferred to nothing, but it feels like the legislative route has more permanence and popularity.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ May 6, 2009 -> 07:05 PM) I stopped reading the user comments on cnn.com a long time ago. They embarrassed me to be associated with the human race. Any mass publication's comments tend to be quite awful, and frankly, shouldn't have commenting. The more niche sites are where comments can be quite informative and actually helpful to the writers and readers.

The one thing that hurts this for news is obviously that you can't get color.

This would do wonders in helping students afford text books.

QUOTE (Soxy @ May 6, 2009 -> 03:30 PM) I am torn on the kindle--on the one hand I could save a ton of money buying books that way. On the other hand I love the feel of a book in my hands. Fortunately I am too broke to afford a kindle--so it's a moot point. I started to get angry with Josh Marshall at TPM when he was speaking to how he was a kindle convert. I couldn't imagine not having a physical book in my hands, the collection of them and giving and borrowing so ingrained in physical books. However, I recently got an ipod touch, and have found myself reading sooo much more news because of its accessibility. NY Times app is incredibly clean and the small size is so much more convenient. (The tribs, on the other hand, is a piece of trash. No paragraphs, really?) The nice thing about the kindle is its ad revenue possibilities. I believe I read that people read the kindle more like a newspaper in terms of where their eyes wander. In addition, NY times and others have been much more effective in helping advertisers create less noisy ads. Overall, I'd love a kindle.