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Topic: For the love of God, make it stop!
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| SuburbanCorrespondent | Posted – 1/29/2008 1:31:41 PM | show profile I am a journalism student and an intern at a major cable news network, about to graduate in the spring. I read this website constantly, since it's pretty much the place to go for information about the TV news business. Just recently I started looking through the bulletin board posts on this site, and it makes me sick to my stomach. The level of debate here makes the most juvenile and confrontational episodes of "The O'Reilly Factor" look like Charlie frickin' Rose. What goes on here is not just what's wrong with the TVNewser message board, it's what's wrong with the whole damn country. People on either side of the fence completely refuse to see things from another perspective, and bitterly attack each other like they're kids throwing a temper tantrum. I know it's a cliched argument, but how long can we go on dividing ourselves and pitting left versus right? The only thing that comes of it is that people become more cynical and bitter, and nothing ever goes anywhere (I speak both of the conversations on this message board AND our government). McCain is constantly attacked by the right for having "worked with Democrats" in the past. So what? How else are we supposed to accomplish anything in this country? Both O'Reilly AND Olbermann are guilty for keeping the divide going and preaching to their respective choirs instead of being truly "fair and balanced". But this message board - good lord. Just when I think you people have gone completely over-the-top, you outdo yourselves. Saying that the Democrats are terrorist sympathizers or calling Bush "Hitler" is like a 6-year-old saying "I know you are, but what am I?" I don't want to come off sounding like a pretentious jerk here, especially considering that I'm just a college student. But seriously, grow up. It wouldn't hurt any of you to get rid of the instinct to dismiss any views that don't agree with your own. Yes, the reason TV news is more like O'Reilly and less like NewsHour is because screaming and yelling get the ratings. But there's no ratings in the real world, and I'm pretty sure not on this message board either. |
| Baile | Posted – 1/29/2008 1:47:38 PM | show profile You make a point that I have tried to make on this board. This left/right thing is a distraction from the real issues facing the country. As long as everyone is at everyone's throats then the real business of the country is not addressed. Clever . - Now the big question is who is benefiting from this stupid divide? The answer should scare you. |
| SuburbanCorrespondent | Posted – 1/29/2008 2:40:43 PM | show profile Of course, there will always be right vs. left. As far as I know, there has always been at least two major political parties with opposing viewpoints battling it out. But it seems to me that we are headed in a very dangerous direction as a country where people completely shut their minds to anything they don't immediately agree with, and the arguments just seem to get louder and dumber by the day (both in the media, and on this message board). In answer to your question - the reason I want to become a journalist IS to change the world, but not in the way you think. Americans, particularly young Americans, are becoming less and less interested in the news, which means they're becoming less and less interested in the issues that affect the world around them. Only old people watch the news, after all. This probably has more to do with the dumbing down of our culture than anything else, but there has got to be a way for TV news to be entertaining, informative, and fair without taking the easy way out and ratcheting up the partisan rancor. Of course, debate is a good thing. But it should be done in a constructive way, rather than the adolescent screaming match it has become. Like I said, it's a cliched argument - but I think it's an important one. But that's just me. I could be a starry-eyed kid who will quickly become jaded when I get into the Real World, but I sure hope not. I didn't make this post to talk about philosophies on news reporting, though (as much as I wish that's the kind of stuff that was actually discussed on this site). I made it to beg you people to stop making everything into a juvenile partisan battle. What I see here is a reflection of what is tearing our country apart, and it makes me very sad. |
| SuburbanCorrespondent | Posted – 1/29/2008 3:51:51 PM | show profile Obviously you didn't get my point. I'm not trying to "change the world" by pushing any agenda, or to advocate for "social justice" (however you define that). I hope for a day when television news can be equally informative AND entertaining, so people will actually pay attention to what's going on in the world, in government, etc. These days, "entertaining" means either sensational stories that have no effect on people's lives whatsoever or left vs. right screaming matches. There's got to be a better way. I totally agree that a journalist's job to stick to the facts. And if I can help "change the world" by making people more interested in the facts, rather than distracted by all the BS, then I'll be a happy man. In a way, I might already doing my job - this is the first civil discussion about actual journalism that I've seen on this message board in a long time. Not to toot my own horn or anything. |
| SuburbanCorrespondent | Posted – 1/29/2008 4:07:06 PM | show profile After re-reading your post, I guess you DID get my point. If I understand you correctly, anything other than the goal of simply reporting the facts straight is not a good reason to go into journalism. And I can see where you're coming from - a desire to get people to "care" about the news is a slippery slope towards influencing someone's coverage. And it is something I am constantly aware of. I want people to get the facts, and make their own opinions. If there is a partisan debate, let it be civil and balanced. Sure, that part's just wishful thinking, but still. My goal is to get people to WANT to know the facts. And if that taints me as a journalist, well, so be it. |
| SuburbanCorrespondent | Posted – 1/31/2008 2:00:58 AM | show profile Wait a second ... I see what you did here! You took a discussion about the civility of this message board, and turned it around into a dubious attack on me! I spent so much time defending myself that I almost forgot what my original argument was. Well played, my friend. You should really be a pundit or a political consultant. And after looking through the posts on this board, it is painfully obvious that you embody absoultely everything I was talking about. Someday this website should compile a list of your ridiculous claims and quotes. See what you've done? You've brought me down to your level. Good lord, I hate myself. I'll see you in hell, TVNewser message board! |
| SuburbanCorrespondent | Posted – 1/31/2008 9:38:48 PM | show profile Do you know why you prove my point, Mr. Lobo? Because your snide, antagonizing comments make me want to lash out at you. They get me so angry and frustrated that I want to say awful things. They make me want to become everything I hate. They make me want to come down to your level in the rancid sewers of our national discourse. And if I do, you'll just laugh and laugh because that's what you wanted all along. That's how people like you win. |
| chucho | Posted – 2/1/2008 6:05:28 AM | show profile I would like to see more discussion on TV journalism not teevee wonkery myself. You can have an influence on the world by reporting the facts. The right constantly says that doing so makes reporters activists. I saw on MSNBC a few months ago an expose on the child-sex trade in Cambodia. The reporter busted this fat redneck Okie lecher who was paying $100 for "yum-yum" form girls as young as 10 - he is now facing federal charges and will go to prison for a very long time. if you applied the right-winger's argument on media you would think the reporter who busted the pedophile was "advocating" against the child sex trade. But that is the reporter's duty. You advocate by reporting the facts. These aren't mutually exclusive things. Now, I use this example because people aren't to argue that this report is wrong. The problem arises when the report focuses on something the people don't think need to be reported or think that reporting certain topics makes them "special interest" advocates. So when, for example, the media pointed out that the CIA and FBI confirmed that Mohammed Atta was taking flight lessons in Florida at the time Dick Cheney (on Dec. 9, 2001 on NBC's Meet The Press) claimed he was meeting with an Iraqi Baathist to trade terrorist secrets, some people say the media is advocating against the Bush foreign policy in Iraq. But in that case, the report is also reporting the truth and advocating against a lie by the Vice President. You can't win this debate because a lot of people have a dogmatic conviction that any reporting that conflicts with their world view. Gun contol, health care, foreign policy -- this view that the media has a "special interest" each time it touches a nerve prevails. I find it more powerful among the conservatives, but a lot of liberals do it, too. |
| jazzreport | Posted – 2/1/2008 9:17:22 AM | show profile I would like to see the liberal media drop their double standards. Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (D) was just caught with his pants down lying under otah. Yet ABC doesn't mention he's a liberal Democrat. Democrat Attorney General Paul Morrison gets caught in a sex scandel and guess what???? The Kansas City Star and other media outlets don't mention he's a Democrat. James Michael McHaney, an aide to liberal Sen. Maria Cantwell ,was arrested for trying to lure a 13 year-old boy into a sexual encounter. Than compare the way these lib pervs --Mel Reynolds,Gerry Studds,Barney Frank,Fred Richmond were treated to the way Foley was treated. |
| chucho | Posted – 2/1/2008 9:41:47 AM | show profile Maybe that's because the AP reporter (not ABC News -- it's AP stories that ABC is posting, I say this to correct your error) assumes that one would have to be a friggin' idiot to think the mayor of Detroit is a Republican. |
| chucho | Posted – 2/1/2008 9:44:31 AM | show profile PS: Frpm the Kasas City Star: Paul Morrison: Political powerhouse to tattered target amid sex scandal By DAVID KLEPPER and STEVE KRASKE The Kansas City Star TOPEKA | He was the Democrats? darling, a former Republican who beat Phill Kline by double digits, boxed for charity and once overcame a Doberman to save a smaller dog. ** Oops, guess you're wrong on the other claim, too. |
| chucho | Posted – 2/1/2008 10:01:53 AM | show profile I don't have too much time to itemize all of your mischaracterizations, but I do recall Barney Frank went though the ringer for at least two years after he came out publicly that he was gay in 1989. And then when his two-year publicly known relationship with a male escort (who lived with him) ended, he went through at least as much of a media shitstorm as any other politicians, especially with regards to his fixing parking tickets. And I might add that there is clearly some merit to being an openly gay politician versus some closet right-wing hypocrite douchebag taking out his self-loathing angst by supporting anti-gay legislation. I know this stuff about Barney because it wasn't quashed by the vast lib-ril media establishment, but rather because it was covered ad nauseum by the media. That's how I remember it. Frank was not treated with kid's gloves when this stuff came out. You are completely mischaracterizing that to serve your own agenda. |
| jazzreport | Posted – 2/1/2008 10:16:23 AM | show profile " The right constantly says that doing so makes reporters activists."-- chucho This is what makes reporters activists----- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/21/BAGUNPCQN41.DTL The Chronicle made the story as an excuse at a morality play revealing how friends are remembering the robber as one who "...always had a smile on his face", that the shop owner "took no satisfaction in taking Hicks' life", and the police "...by no stretch of the imagination" were they "agreeing with or justifying what the owner did." We are even treated to a telling of our "tragic" robber's happy little "rap artist" name; "Boonie". http://newsbusters.org/blogs/terry-trippany/2007/10/18/reporter-suspended-berating-senior-citizen-who-fatally-shot-suspecte "Are you a trigger happy person? Is that what you wanted to do; shoot to kill?" Than you get the LATimes,AP, and other media outlets printing any stat Jesse Jackson and the Brady bunch gives them about guns.More than half the time their stats are wrong.But who cares??? To libs guns are the problems. What about reporters calling anyone who disagrees with globel warming "Holocaust deniers" Since liberals hate SUVS you get the SUV kills" headlines SUV plunges into canal, killing 7 people inside SUV kills baby in stroller in Queens SUV Kills Skateboarding Teen I don't know if theses SUVS where charged with murder? |
| jazzreport | Posted – 2/1/2008 10:27:27 AM | show profile In the original, 10-paragraph story about his resignation, not one time does it mention the fact that he's a Democrat. Attorney General Paul Morrison will resign next month, he announced this afternoon. Standing outside his office, Morrison said the scandal that began Sunday led many to stop believing in him. He said he was resigning, effective Jan. 31, to preserve the public confidence in the office of attorney general. Calls for Morrison?s resignation built this week after news of his two-year affair with a former employee surfaced, along with allegations that he harassed the woman and tried to use her The EDITED version of story mentions his party affiliation in the fourth paragraph?.It was RE-POSTED at 6:28 pm Dec 14. |
| jazzreport | Posted – 2/1/2008 10:33:44 AM | show profile I say this to correct your error) assumes that one would have to be a friggin' idiot to think the mayor of Detroit is a Republican. Since the liberal media always uses theses labels "rightwinger,conservative,conservative blog,and conservatie activist when talking about anyone on the the right and they never do it to anyone one/group on the left, does this mean libs/dems are friggin idots???/ |
| noname1234 | Posted – 2/1/2008 11:20:08 AM | show profile Frank, what do you think drove the reporter to dive into the sex-trade story and write about it? Reporting is about exposing meaningful facts and truths (i.e., not just silly trivia, but facts shape the lives of some or many people) -- and if these facts and truths need exposing, that means they're not already known. And often, things that aren't widely known are because they involve the lives of people who don't have a lot of power, money or direct access to the media themselves -- people who may be marginalized, such as poor young girls being held as sex slaves. To the original poster: You sound like an enthusiastic, thoughful young person investing your time and energy in a career that excites you. Good for you! There is nothing wrong with that. You'll continue to learn as your career progresses. |
| chucho | Posted – 2/1/2008 11:44:32 AM | show profile >> In the original, 10-paragraph story about his resignation, not one time does it mention the fact that he's a Democrat. << So it this how it works? Every story has to fit your parameters or else the paper is part of the vast lib-ril conspiracy? Did it ever occur to you that maybe some of this coverage is for the local community, where it would look weird to conjure a descriptor that everyone in the community is aware of (like the mayor of Detroit example)? Just because it's online doesn't mean it's a story written for everyone on the planet. It's the KS Star wrirign about a local scandal, so forgive the reporter for assuming people know what party their local official belongs to. (And if you haven't noticed, your examples are pretty localized and local coverage is less likely to name the political affiliation of their local officials.) And still, I give you an example of a story from the same paper that's an entire article that focuses on Morrison's political affiliation, and that doesn't satisfy you. Well, perhaps you just aren't going to be satisfied, so I guess it's incumbent of you to switch on BillO or whomever and spend an hour feeling persecuted by the vast lib-ril conspiracy around you that plots to hide the political affiliation of the Detroit mayor. |
| noname1234 | Posted – 2/1/2008 12:18:53 PM | show profile Frank, sounds like you want to teach journalism or run a newsroom so you can re-program all the misguided souls who "don't get it." The original poster is taking steps -- education, internships -- to get into the career of journalism. Sounds like he's willing to do the hard work to get involved, rather than just opine from the sidelines. Are you doing anything to get into a position where you can have actual influence in an industry you feel passionately about, other than posting anonymously on message boards? |
| SuburbanCorrespondent | Posted – 2/1/2008 12:40:55 PM | show profile Thanks, Noname, but it seems like everyone's forgotten why I wrote my post to begin with. And Frank, my feelings aren't hurt at all. You are nothing more than an Internet bully - which is just like being a bully on the elementary school playground, only infinitely more pathetic. Ugh, a personal attack. See what you've done to me? The only reason I let myself say it is because it's true. |
| SuburbanCorrespondent | Posted – 2/1/2008 12:49:03 PM | show profile Also, Frank... I'd ask you exactly what makes you such an authority on journalism, but I'm petrified that you might actually work in the business. I think it's a pretty safe bet that you don't, though. Such a job would take away valuable time you could spend obsessively checking the Internet for evidence of liberal bias. |
| chucho | Posted – 2/1/2008 2:50:40 PM | show profile Frank, obviously you feel passionately about this issue, but I don't think anyone gets into journalism to be stenographers or who wander around to randomly bump into a string of facts that merit publication, according to whatever parameters you consider appropriate. You parameters, by the way, would have made muckraking impossible; the very definition of muckraking is activist-oriented journalism. And I don't buy your argument anyway. Because if there were reporters out there "merely reporting the facts" in support of your views about, say, the war in Iraq, the evil Muslims, an the terrorist-supporting Democrats, you wouldn't be outraged over that. You would love it and you woudl call that objective reporting. Somebody else here touched on an important issue, and one that belies why people like you think jouranlism is evil, agenda-laden liberalism: that journalism's mission is in part to seek out those who do not have a voice. That is an inherently liberal idea. I've never said that journalism isn't liberal -- in fact I don't think it's liberal enough. You problem, IMO, is that you don't really seem to understand that this country is founded on liberal principles and a free press cannot exits without them. And I cede the floor to more of your hyperbole and hubris. |
| chucho | Posted – 2/1/2008 3:37:05 PM | show profile Nobody's arguing that. I'm arguing YOUR DEFINITION of "advocating a position". Let's go back to the child sex story. A reporter set out with an agenda: to expose American sexual predators in Cambodia. How can you NOT say that this is an agenda? It might be a noble agenda, but it's an agenda nonetheless (and one by an evil lib-ril MSNBC reporter, by the way!). He pitched his agenda, got a plane ticket, flew to Cambodia, hung around posing as a sex tourist until he busted some bad people. He didn't just wander the world until the facts bumped into him. He planned a story and pursued the facts until he had a story. That's journalism. Sexual predators might consider it entrapment, but we don't care what they think. Still, it's activism. Your retort didn't make any sense: a reporter went out to seek out facts to support his agenda. It was a good agenda, and it was factually reported agenda, but it was a classic muckraking piece of JOURNALISM. Another controversial one had to do with that New York Times reporter who got so involved with his story that he actually paid money to get close to his source, a teenage boy doing sex acts online for perverts. The story got so heave the reporter participated in a FBI sting operation. Some people actually disagree with this, but most people agree that this reporter's agenda (which he openly admits is rooted in his personal dislike for online predators) resulted in the arrest of dozens of pedophiles and child pornographers. In your paradigm, this story lacks merit. Some of the greatest journalists that have ever lived planned and executed an agenda and, again, you look at jouralims in conservative societies and you find a lot of pablum and hagiography and little or no muckraking or earth-shattering exposes. And, I repeat: I beleive your personal views on the war on terror, on evil Muslims, and on terrorist-supporting Democrats is infecting your perception of the US media. At least have the honesty to admit that a majority of people in America do not think Democrats support terrorism or even want us in Iraq -- and if the media reflects that view it is merely pandering to the status quo, which is not you (or me, for that matter). |
| jazzreport | Posted – 2/1/2008 3:45:35 PM | show profile Somebody else here touched on an important issue, and one that belies why people like you think jouranlism is evil, agenda-laden liberalism: that journalism's mission is in part to seek out those who do not have a voice. That is an inherently liberal idea.--chucho "why people like you" You mean the majority of Americans?? I don't see journalists seeking out anti- abortion people and giving them a voice. I don't see journalists reaching out giving those who support the death penalty a voice. I don't see journalists reaching out to people who don't believe the glodal warming hype. When Republicans get arrested or in trouble i have no problem with the media identifying them by party . The problem is when you watch tv news programs, read the AP,LATimes,NYTimes, and other newspapers they tend to either not mention or put it in the last paragraph the word "Democrat". This is done on purpose to make people think the only people getting arrest are Republicans .. That is an inherently liberal idea i guess. |
| jazzreport | Posted – 2/1/2008 3:59:02 PM | show profile Wait.... chucho wasn't you just moons ago complaining about Brit Hume taking a stand on a issue??? |
| noname1234 | Posted – 2/1/2008 5:16:17 PM | show profile Frank, I assume the Pulitzer Prize board is an organization you respect, since you boast of having "been nominated" for an award 12 years ago. Pulitzers are given out in many categories of journalism -- local, breaking news, investigative, criticism, etc. (in all your comments above you neglect to mention that there are different kinds of journalism). And there's even a category called "service," which seems by its very nature to run counter to what you consider journalism. So who won the service prize in 2007? "The Wall Street Journal. For its creative and comprehensive probe into backdated stock options for business executives that triggered investigations, the ouster of top officials and widespread change in corporate America." But as journalists, according to you, shouldn't they not care about what changes the story triggered? Shouldn't the Pulitzer committee merely note how well the WSJ transcribed the facts of the situation, and leave it at that, if that's what journalism's all about and that's all that journalists should be focused on? Or is the Pulitzer committee just another part of the vast liberal cabal? If so, you might want to stop dropping their name to prove your own bona fides. |
