Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Whom do you trust?
Who are your favorite news people (I mean on television, but comments on news writers are also welcome.) Unfavorites?
I'm a CNN junkie, and have developed a real motherly fondness for Anderson Cooper on CNN, not just for sticking with the Gulf Coast disaster so steadfastly, but also because he has such nice manners with people from all walks of life.
Also, of course, I love the fake-news comic wonder, Jon Stewart -- and love is no exaggeration here . I have not forgotten his losing it and crying when they came back on air after 9-11, and I also think he is brilliant and can hold his own in interviws with all kinds of awesome people. I'm not sure why satire and humor are so important to our keeping our grip, but they are.
Anyway, those two give me faith for the future.
And, I am grudgingly going to acknowledge that Larry King is a very good interviewer for pop culture figures, although he softballs when interviewing politicians.
I am annoyed by Lou Dobbs, even though I know that he's hammering home some important issues. He just comes across like a demagogue, and I am not ever forgetting that all of our ancestors got here as "aliens." It goes against my grain to say, "This is my America and you can't come in." In any case he breaks almost all the rules I cherish as as a newspaper writer.
I'm so stuck on CNN that I'm probably missing some other good and bad people. I'll switch channels from time to time if anybody has some recommendations.
Newspapers? When I REALLY want to get up to date and try to understand something (like the Dubai Ports thing) I go to the New York Times on line, and to the Christian Science Monitor. Sporcupine has said that the British newspapers are really good.
Also, I like the New Yorker for essays on issues, and am right now reading "Don't Know Much about History" to fill in some huge gaps in American history. My battle against ignorance goes on and on, which is what most English majors face. Tina and I are in agreement that we could keep reading for the rest of our lives and never come close to filing in all the gaps. (On the other hand I can tell you when and where William Wordsworth was born, and what Milton wrote when he spend that time in Horton.)
Do you have great blithering areas of ignorance too? Are you trying to catch up? Are their writers and commentators you trust and like? Any you dont?. (I never could stand Dan Rather and Blitzer makes my eye glaze over)
I'm a CNN junkie, and have developed a real motherly fondness for Anderson Cooper on CNN, not just for sticking with the Gulf Coast disaster so steadfastly, but also because he has such nice manners with people from all walks of life.
Also, of course, I love the fake-news comic wonder, Jon Stewart -- and love is no exaggeration here . I have not forgotten his losing it and crying when they came back on air after 9-11, and I also think he is brilliant and can hold his own in interviws with all kinds of awesome people. I'm not sure why satire and humor are so important to our keeping our grip, but they are.
Anyway, those two give me faith for the future.
And, I am grudgingly going to acknowledge that Larry King is a very good interviewer for pop culture figures, although he softballs when interviewing politicians.
I am annoyed by Lou Dobbs, even though I know that he's hammering home some important issues. He just comes across like a demagogue, and I am not ever forgetting that all of our ancestors got here as "aliens." It goes against my grain to say, "This is my America and you can't come in." In any case he breaks almost all the rules I cherish as as a newspaper writer.
I'm so stuck on CNN that I'm probably missing some other good and bad people. I'll switch channels from time to time if anybody has some recommendations.
Newspapers? When I REALLY want to get up to date and try to understand something (like the Dubai Ports thing) I go to the New York Times on line, and to the Christian Science Monitor. Sporcupine has said that the British newspapers are really good.
Also, I like the New Yorker for essays on issues, and am right now reading "Don't Know Much about History" to fill in some huge gaps in American history. My battle against ignorance goes on and on, which is what most English majors face. Tina and I are in agreement that we could keep reading for the rest of our lives and never come close to filing in all the gaps. (On the other hand I can tell you when and where William Wordsworth was born, and what Milton wrote when he spend that time in Horton.)
Do you have great blithering areas of ignorance too? Are you trying to catch up? Are their writers and commentators you trust and like? Any you dont?. (I never could stand Dan Rather and Blitzer makes my eye glaze over)
# posted by Charlotte @ 10:25 PM 
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i rarely watch tv news. in my opinion, it's rarely news anymore, but more entertainment. once the news readers started getting cosmetic surgery, i dropped out. i do read newspapers, but i get most of my news from public radio as i'm driving to and from work and doing investigation.
# posted by 
: Thursday, March 02, 2006
: Thursday, March 02, 2006
All Things Considered, Prairie Home Companion, I listen to Morning Edition while getting dressed. I am a public radio junkie.
Some television news folks make me laugh and cry...laugh because of the way they shake their hair to fall just so or smile to show off their pearlies.(It's all about me syndrome) Cry because of how the public is getting shortchanged on getting good information. That matters.
I have subscribed to The Christian Science Monitor (became interested with the reporter kidnapped story) and enjoy working those brain cells reading intelligent writing!
Some television news folks make me laugh and cry...laugh because of the way they shake their hair to fall just so or smile to show off their pearlies.(It's all about me syndrome) Cry because of how the public is getting shortchanged on getting good information. That matters.
I have subscribed to The Christian Science Monitor (became interested with the reporter kidnapped story) and enjoy working those brain cells reading intelligent writing!
# posted by : Thursday, March 02, 2006
: Thursday, March 02, 2006
Good grief! You two make me feel like a CNN-junkie, which I am. I tend to pick up the news from tv and follow up reading articles online. I don't ever watch the area local tv news though, because I having seen them in action, I have absolutely no confidence in anything they report.
no spring, I like Anderson, too. I heard he is the son of Gloria Vanderbilt, do you know if that is true?
Stephen Colbert had an interesting guest last nite who operates a blog-news site I think it is called the Huffington Post or something like that. Sounded interesting.
I do not watch the local tv folks either...Channel 2 Atlanta is on my television if I am home during that time.
I bet we could share some stories about experience of local tv reporters....I remember how they would always walk in the middle or end of a meeting and ask "what's going on?"
And some of the people I covered would just start this gushing thing whenever a reporter with a camera man would walk into a room.
You know, the get-thee-behind-me-print-media-the-real-reporters-are-here-now! type of thing.
Stephen Colbert had an interesting guest last nite who operates a blog-news site I think it is called the Huffington Post or something like that. Sounded interesting.
I do not watch the local tv folks either...Channel 2 Atlanta is on my television if I am home during that time.
I bet we could share some stories about experience of local tv reporters....I remember how they would always walk in the middle or end of a meeting and ask "what's going on?"
And some of the people I covered would just start this gushing thing whenever a reporter with a camera man would walk into a room.
You know, the get-thee-behind-me-print-media-the-real-reporters-are-here-now! type of thing.
# posted by : Thursday, March 02, 2006
: Thursday, March 02, 2006
Huffington Post is fun, though sometimes a little much. (I like my bias in small doses)
There is something about political blogs that seems to head from reasonable to irrational the more comments there are.
Local tv reporters are a hoot. The most fun is having a brand new one on election night, when they come in dressed up so cute and clueless. I My favorite was the one who asked, "Are any of these people candidates?" but there was also that wonderful evening (some SPLOST or minor vote) that the blond one kept talking about getting all these lights set up and having a "live remote" at 11,without realizing that everybody was about to lock up and go home before 9. I tuned in at 11 and saw her doing her live remote from the middle of Main Street. Nobody but her.
Yes, Anderson is the son of Gloria Vanderbilt.
There is something about political blogs that seems to head from reasonable to irrational the more comments there are.
Local tv reporters are a hoot. The most fun is having a brand new one on election night, when they come in dressed up so cute and clueless. I My favorite was the one who asked, "Are any of these people candidates?" but there was also that wonderful evening (some SPLOST or minor vote) that the blond one kept talking about getting all these lights set up and having a "live remote" at 11,without realizing that everybody was about to lock up and go home before 9. I tuned in at 11 and saw her doing her live remote from the middle of Main Street. Nobody but her.
Yes, Anderson is the son of Gloria Vanderbilt.
Nearly all my news comes from NPR, but I do like Talking Points Memo on-line and Keith Oberman for absurd attitude, and I watch Chris Matthews.
I used to be better about reading the state papers, but I taught Google to notify me of all new stories for some key words, and since I've seen those, I often only read the comics in the actual paper.
I used to be better about reading the state papers, but I taught Google to notify me of all new stories for some key words, and since I've seen those, I often only read the comics in the actual paper.
Computers are going to be the death of newspapers, I think. I used to subscribe to the Telegraph, but now I think, "Why?"
When I get very interested in a subject in the news, I move from TV to the major news publications on line, and eventually to books (Example: I read a whole LOT about the Middle East at one point, trying to understand their worldview)
I mentioned having vast areas of ignorance and nobody else joined in that discussion.
I will say, however that I have had something reinforced in my head in the last week or two -- re the Dubai Ports deal -- which is my awareness that there is a global business community that operates over our heads without regard to nationality and they are truly surprised at the public reaction to the ports deal, because to them, it's all about money. Also, our president, while playing the High Noon cowboy role on National Security for the general public, is really comfortable in the global business community and was caught off guard by the intrusion of the American public as if a bunch of trailer park people ran into a swell party shouting "Fire!"
This is all very interesting stuff to me -- as is the apparent split between the Clintons, with his advising Dubai on how to handle the debacle pr-wise, and her jumping into her Statue of Liberty mode to defend New York Harbor.
When I get very interested in a subject in the news, I move from TV to the major news publications on line, and eventually to books (Example: I read a whole LOT about the Middle East at one point, trying to understand their worldview)
I mentioned having vast areas of ignorance and nobody else joined in that discussion.
I will say, however that I have had something reinforced in my head in the last week or two -- re the Dubai Ports deal -- which is my awareness that there is a global business community that operates over our heads without regard to nationality and they are truly surprised at the public reaction to the ports deal, because to them, it's all about money. Also, our president, while playing the High Noon cowboy role on National Security for the general public, is really comfortable in the global business community and was caught off guard by the intrusion of the American public as if a bunch of trailer park people ran into a swell party shouting "Fire!"
This is all very interesting stuff to me -- as is the apparent split between the Clintons, with his advising Dubai on how to handle the debacle pr-wise, and her jumping into her Statue of Liberty mode to defend New York Harbor.
i still want to touch a newspaper so i rearely read online unless someone tells me about a legal article in another paper. reading online you probably missed the tiny article this morning about the survey which indicates that more people can name 2 tv characters from the simpsons than can name 5 rights guranteed by the constitution. scary, huh?
# posted by : Friday, March 03, 2006
: Friday, March 03, 2006
I tell students that "television news" is an oxymoron. PBS tv news is probably the best, though boring. I get my big picture news from NPR. I do read the three daily papers that come to our house (and did not know until now that Sporcupine does not). The local paper is best as a town newsletter (and our kids are in it a great deal :-) ). The state papers are best for state politics, which NPR doesn't cover. I think TV does the weather the best.
The best reporter: Nina Totenberg.
The best reporter: Nina Totenberg.
I have to disagree with a wholesale write-off of television news, because it is absolutely the best medium for some kinds of news. CNN did a spectacularly good job on the coverage of the Gulf Coast disaster, including the awfulness of the evacuations with the miles and miles of stalled cars, the rescue efforts and the human suffering. I can't imagine how anybody would grasp the enormity of what happened in New Orleans (or for that matter, what happened to the World Trade Center and the people in it) without the televised images. Also, re CNN and the Gulf Coast, they have never stopped covering the devastation, the debris not yet cleaned up, people living in tents, etc., those acres of trailers unused in Arkansas - while the print media has gone on to other stories.
I DO like to SEE the news as a starting point, and I think that images are a crucial part of our understanding of what is going on around the world.
I could do without a lot of the talking heads on television, but there are a lot of fatheads writing for newspapers, too, especially on the editorial pages.
I DO like to SEE the news as a starting point, and I think that images are a crucial part of our understanding of what is going on around the world.
I could do without a lot of the talking heads on television, but there are a lot of fatheads writing for newspapers, too, especially on the editorial pages.
No Spring, how do you think the media that covers the White House felt when they learned a hometown newspaper, The Corpus Christi Caller Times, had the story about the Cheney shooting accident about 24 hours before them? Rah, rah, rah!! I have a soft spot for small-town newspapers!!
# posted by : Friday, March 03, 2006
: Friday, March 03, 2006
I love it. I didn't know that. Here's one you'll like. There's practically nobody at the FV Leader Tribune and they've got Faye Jones -- who has been doing a cooking column and a chatty column-- writing news. She isn't exactly journalistic but she's a natural writer and I absolutely loved her story about the fire in Byron. She named each of the firefighters who reported to the scene and gave a history of the house and all its different owners over the years that included the fact that the white columns supposedly came from Italy.
You would have liked that front page bcause it had THREE FIRE PICTURES. Nothing happened all week except for fires. It looked like the paper was on fire.
You would have liked that front page bcause it had THREE FIRE PICTURES. Nothing happened all week except for fires. It looked like the paper was on fire.
Yeah, TV is best when the news is visual. Floods, fires, bombings. Most of the news, though, is about words. TV tries to make it visual, anyway, even when there is nothing to show, which is how they end up interviewing other journalists about what they think might be going on.
I had never thought of news as being about words, not even at the local (not-blowing-things-up) level. News may be told in words, but it's about what's happening, except - I suppose -- when we have one of those indignation cycles about something somebody said, or when words tell us that the dots aren't connecting, like President Bush's famous, "You're doing a heckova job, Brownie." Or maybe when people start thinking Guantanamo is really some lengthy court battle-of-words instead of what it is.
i think of news as words too. i guess all those weekly reader papers we got in elementary school indoctrinated me.:) it's interesting that people who don't think the news is words are the people who actually write the words that are the news. i'll have to think about this concept for awhile.
# posted by : Saturday, March 04, 2006
: Saturday, March 04, 2006
Okay. This is just a terminology difference. To me the events that happen are the news. I don't make news with words. News happens and I use words to write about it. Basically, though,and Queenofsheba might agree here, I think that those of us who regularly start from scratch with writing news stories, would always rather, for our own enlightenment, have the raw material than what some writer (other than the best and brightest) has made of it. Police incident reports are more interesting to read than news briefs about crimes. Fires are heat, smoke, noise, excitement and danger if you're there, and damage reports once you're writing (unless you were lucky enough to get great pictures) In meetings, you see the facial expressions, see how citizens are respected or not, pick up the nuances. Trials are far more fascinating observed directly (or on CourtTV) than they are as news stories. Anyway, while I like being able to write for a living, I don't think journalism is the best kind of writing, and I do find the process of getting the story much more illuminating than the process of writing it.
I definitely agree with working with raw material. Experiencing, to a degree, what some of the people you cover experience was always important to me, too....like riding with police or suiting up with firefighters. (I miss those days!) Which is why I understand your questions about how to experience an arrest, No Spring. Although I've never experienced that!
I think there is a certain connection we all strive to make with our readers...like a bridge from the subject matter to their minds (does that sound weird or what?!) Anyhow, one thing that plays into it, in my opinion, is some people digest information better from reading it in print, while others get a better understanding through audio, video or pictures.
I bet Barely could share some insight into that since she deals with juries.
I think there is a certain connection we all strive to make with our readers...like a bridge from the subject matter to their minds (does that sound weird or what?!) Anyhow, one thing that plays into it, in my opinion, is some people digest information better from reading it in print, while others get a better understanding through audio, video or pictures.
I bet Barely could share some insight into that since she deals with juries.
# posted by : Saturday, March 04, 2006
: Saturday, March 04, 2006
i'm still working on the concept, but i'm beginning to get a glimmer. news to me is words because i have always been the receiver, never the writer of news. [and it usually isn't pretty when i'm the maker of news.:)]I'm not used to the raw data, but to getting a concise statement after someone has struggled to get the raw data into an inch of newsprint.
# posted by : Sunday, March 05, 2006
: Sunday, March 05, 2006
Of course you're used to the raw data.
That's what a trial is. (Granted, the crime is rawer, but we are seldom there as observers)
As a reader, if I were really interested in a particular trial that happened in the past, and I hadn't actually been there, I'd want to read the court transcript, not the newspaper reports.
Funny story from the past -- I had a Greenpeace guy show up in Montezuma once to say that Procter and Gamble (Now Weyerhaeuser) was polluting the Flint River and there were thousands of dead fish floating in the river) I basically asked him to show me the fish and he thought I was some kind of anti-environment conservative because I wanted to see the dead fish before I reported that there were dead fish.
To me, that's a sensible request. (I think you would agree as a lawyer that if somebody's saying that there are thousands of dead fish, then somebody must have seen them floating and stinking up the river.(They don't have obituaries)
Greenpeace Guy kept repeating his credentials and personal values and talking about how evil the company was and how they had turned the river green once in the past (true) and I kept saying that if he wanted to take me where the dead fish were, I'd take a picture and write a story. Finally it turned out that he didn't know where the dead fish were (probably didn't know where the river was) but somebody had told him about the dead fish whose name he couldn't reveal. So I was supposed to write a story about a second hand report of dead fish.
Okay, some reporters WOULD make a story of words, writing that, "Greenpeace claims there are 'thousands of dead fish' in the Flint River.." and then getting the P&G "side" of it and some journalists would consider that balanced or objective as long as both "sides" were included.
That's what a trial is. (Granted, the crime is rawer, but we are seldom there as observers)
As a reader, if I were really interested in a particular trial that happened in the past, and I hadn't actually been there, I'd want to read the court transcript, not the newspaper reports.
Funny story from the past -- I had a Greenpeace guy show up in Montezuma once to say that Procter and Gamble (Now Weyerhaeuser) was polluting the Flint River and there were thousands of dead fish floating in the river) I basically asked him to show me the fish and he thought I was some kind of anti-environment conservative because I wanted to see the dead fish before I reported that there were dead fish.
To me, that's a sensible request. (I think you would agree as a lawyer that if somebody's saying that there are thousands of dead fish, then somebody must have seen them floating and stinking up the river.(They don't have obituaries)
Greenpeace Guy kept repeating his credentials and personal values and talking about how evil the company was and how they had turned the river green once in the past (true) and I kept saying that if he wanted to take me where the dead fish were, I'd take a picture and write a story. Finally it turned out that he didn't know where the dead fish were (probably didn't know where the river was) but somebody had told him about the dead fish whose name he couldn't reveal. So I was supposed to write a story about a second hand report of dead fish.
Okay, some reporters WOULD make a story of words, writing that, "Greenpeace claims there are 'thousands of dead fish' in the Flint River.." and then getting the P&G "side" of it and some journalists would consider that balanced or objective as long as both "sides" were included.
my glimmer is becoming brighter. a trial is definitely not raw data...it's theater. it's an op-ed piece by the two attorneys. it's worse than the greepeace guy. it's innuedo and flattery, it's pacing, it's pathos...need i go on. it's why i roll in the floor when i read becky purser trying to second guess what i'm doing in the trial. if a trial were journalism, i would be a bo-toxed bimbo with alot of makeup and a public relations firm doing on the spot polls reading words that were at least third hand. i disagree with w, however. the constitution is not just a damn piece of paer.
# posted by : Sunday, March 05, 2006
: Sunday, March 05, 2006
Okay, now we got you steamed up!! I'm really going to have to cover some trials. (I've done them, but mainly in Macon County) Let me know when a good one coming up and I will put my heart and soul into writing it better than BP.
On another subject -- I enjoyed the J.A. Jance, except I kept thinking she was going to get a romance going with the tough cop.
I finally sent a friendly e-mail to the people who have had my mystery manuscript since last April asking them to let me know what's going on with it.
On another subject -- I enjoyed the J.A. Jance, except I kept thinking she was going to get a romance going with the tough cop.
I finally sent a friendly e-mail to the people who have had my mystery manuscript since last April asking them to let me know what's going on with it.
hopefully i will soon be reading your published book rather than have you do an impersonation of b. p. although even she is better than the ex-wr bureau head who tried to tell me how uncooperative with the press is was when he didn't even know me...of course then i did show him uncooperative.:) good night, mr. weaver wherever you are.
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# posted by : Sunday, March 05, 2006
: Sunday, March 05, 2006 << Home
