Slate: Palin-Letterman: Who won? […] Anyone who’s been scoring Letterman v. Palin knows that it has been a ratings boon to both sides: Last week, David Letterman told a tasteless joke. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin flipped out. Letterman apologized. Palin went berserk. Letterman apologized again. Palin accepted his apology on behalf of “young women” everywhere. Letterman’s ratings skyrocketed. And Palin is back in the headlines. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

This was top news the last few days. Top news. Top. Ya know, given that the state of the economy, along side of several multi-decade companies running for Bankruptcy court, plus the growing chaos on Iran, the ongoing civil rights battle in China, the battle action still going on in Iraq, and the required surge of action in Afghanistan, not to mention the whole stand off with the recently-self-declared-nuclear-weapons-holding North Korean, I wonder how we can spend any time at all worried about the off colored humor of Letterman, the misunderstood or tasteless joke that he made concerning either of Palin’s daughters, or the fact that one of Palin’s underage [at the time] daughters did get knocked up and became a [single] teenage mother. Top news. Leading story for some channels/web sites over the last 48 hours.

While I’m not too certain who won the argument of Letterman vs Palin, there is at least one thing that I’m pretty certain of: in this case, we’ve all lost.

Media self-awareness and topic selection: FAIL

The modern media is lost. It’s been obvious to me for a while now, but it looks like other people are beginning to realize it – look at the backlash that’s being unleashed on the New York Times. Of course the ACLU will respond and the Times will circle the wagons. Within 48 hours I expect to see George W dressed in a Nazi uniform and sprayed across media of all kinds, including the evening news. Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Press, all that rot.

What really, really pisses me off is that through all of this debate and chaos, no one talks about the Responsibility of Freedom.
Continue reading All The News That’s Fit To Tint →

Looking through the news, I’m simply embarrassed by what is making US headlines these days, considering what’s knocking around in the world these days. And yes, who’s the blame? The media? Not entirely. We let them get away with it. We – as US Citizens – are just as much to blame because we thrive on shitty, US-centric, beat-on-Bush news.

Need an example? You shouldn’t, but I have some to share, just the same…
Continue reading State of Things →

MSNBC: Newsweek magazine, under fire for publishing a story that led to deadly protests in Afghanistan, said Monday it was retracting its report that a military probe had found evidence of desecration of the Quran by U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay.

And you probably thought I was nuts when I asked “Who polices the media“…

I’d like to see a wave of pressure from everyone – politician and citizen alike – that forces the media to be a little more responsible about their stories. Make them think twice about responsibility and maybe fact check a little more, seeing as there are very real consequences to their newsstories. That’s what I’d like to see, but what I expect to see is a right wing push to censor or control the media and a left wing push to beat the right wing group with a cast iron copy of the Constitution, meaning that nothing will get done and the media will continue to run amuck.

Like I said to Chuck earlier today, “you can’t be a moderate anymore – if you’re moderate you’ve got no skin in the game and ya got no real feelings about a topic: unless you’re a radical, you don’t count anymore. I swear it gives me gout.”

Think about it. The media keeps on waving their forty year old We-Caught-Nixon flag as an “excuse” to burrow their noses into every little thing that they think they should be allowed to report on. OK, fine, I’m all for freedom of the press, but shouldn’t there also be some constraint shown by the media-at-large?
Continue reading If the Media Polices Government, Who Polices the Media? →