irritated with the news

[ZenDog]

So I've gotten a little irritated with the news lately. Lately, this evening more specifically. WPTZ in particular.

Cheap flower commercials - I think that was it. "Be a super hero - go online now!"

Then the news fades in - but there is no sound. There's Kelly Morris, chatting up a storm, but the sound tech must have gotten paid real well this week and forgot to turn on her mic. Ya-ya. That must be it. He got paid real well.

The story? Some guy visiting from Connecticut drowned in a lake this morning at 11 am. That's a real shame too. I mean, it isn't like his wife is going to get over it this week is it.

The beach front looked awfully familiar. Similar to the kind of beach you find in Charlotte - a lot of black shale worn smooth.

It's alright tho. It has nothing to do with me. Really. The 'relatives' returned to Connecticut safe and sound last night, so they weren't swimming anywhere in Vermont.

Maybe I should just shoot my tv. It's either that, or the program director - which one do you think would be cheaper?

TV, hands down huh? That figures. Ya know, I really can't figure why I turn to you guys for out of the box solutions. I mean hey. It's obvious. Crush the box.

You realize that means no more DVDs? eYeah, of course you do.

I can hear you laughing.

[darroll]

Our news on Channel 6 in Portland is also the pits.
This young girl saved her family after the mother drove in a creek.
The video people showed the footage of that deer that was being raised in someone’s back yard, that the state took away.

[ZenDog]

you mean they mixed up the video and the sound?

so the suggestion then becomes . . .

the girl saves her family and now the state will take her away? But what if it was an honest mistake on mom's part? Now the public has some other expectation.

It's Defamation by sub-liminal innuendo . . .

[darroll]

LMAO,
They were talking about the little girl hero and showing footage of the state putting a net over a deer and carting it off.

The best one we saw was:
They had their cameras set up on some bridge that they were about to blow up as the bridge was unsafe and had to be torn down.
They announced that the blast would take place in three minutes. In the mean time cars were passing and a mother was pushing a baby carriage across the bridge.
Then they realized that they had set up on the wrong bridge.
We never did see the boom.

[ZenDog]

And you wonder why some folks are convinced the Federal Government, or GBush personally, was involved in the destruction of the twin towers?

someone should be shot . . .

[ZenDog]

I mean, really! That kind of iconography, that kind of inducement to fear would never have passed while Walter Cronkite was alive. No, I don't believe it would. He set the bar for integrity, providing a measure of competence and honesty that induced trust. He set a standard others tried to live up to.

He is gone now. So, it seems, is everything he stood for in journalism within the culture of mass media.

If we can't fix this - if we can't straighten this chit out - then I say prepare for mass social psychosis and the resurection of Joe McCarthy . . .