I've been staring at this big empty white rectangle for several hours now, and just like the meteor shower, if you stare unblinking at it long enough you can see stuff happening even if it's really not.
Stare into the sky of a hot, humid nighttime and teeny little dashes blip across the static sparkling stars- are they meteors? Or involuntary twitches of your eyeballs?
We call them meteors and go inside, itching the bites the mosquitoes have inflicted in spite of the bug repellent.
Stare at this big empty box long enough (and with a self-imposed deadline of a midnight posting) and words appear- most of them backspaced into oblivion before ever getting a chance at being seen by more than the author- and for that the reader may be thankful.
*Trust me*.
Most of the words that appear here are involuntary twitches that flash between my brain and my fingers, and most of them are gawdawful.
So they get backspaced and disappeared and I think "Yanno, maybe this whole 'writer' thing was just a phase and I need to take up something more my speed- like Afternoon Napping".
And I guess the problem is that nothing particularly post-worthy happened today.
Some mildly annoying, momentarily frightening, but not insurmountable things.
Some very good, very happy, "This is the sort of thing that will give me a warm fuzzy every time I think about it for the rest of my life" things.
Nothing huge in either direction.
Nothing to even piss me off just enough to get all worked up about.
No. Wait.
On Saturday Night Live, right now- Weekend Update with Seth Meyers just showed a map of Australia, a big-toothed reptile and the word "Alligator" underneath it.
Are you freakin' kidding me?
There are no Alligators in Australia. None. Not one. Zero. Those big-toothed reptiles in Australia are Crocodiles. Always have been. Always will be.
That's the sort of thing that makes me insane.
Remember the movie "Romancing the Stone"? It was a pretty good flick for its time.
Right at the beginning, when the bus carrying Kathleen Turner collided with Michael Douglas' jeep full of exotic birds he'd been collecting for the pet trade (wildly illegal btw) and they all flew the coop literally? And he explained the worth of the various kinds of birds- so much for a macaw, so much for a conure, so much for a sulphur- crested cockatoo?
Ruined the whole rest of the movie for me. On accounta there ARE no sulphur-crested cockatoos (or any other kind of cockatoo) in South America- THOSE are from Australia.
If you're going to cover a story- even in a pretend news show, or write something into a movie script, make sure you've got your facts straight.
Because there WILL be people out there who will catch it if you've tried to scrimp on fact finding.
We are watching. We are listening. And we will be pissed off by such slovenly research. Because life is messy enough without our entertainment being screwed up.
I mean, if we can't trust Seth Meyers and Saturday Night Live to deliver factual accounts of the weekly news in review, or the producers of a movie they purposely set in South America to find out what actually lives there, we may as well just give up all hope of seeing anything remotely resembling the real world and turn on FOX News.
Wow. Almost midnight.
That was a close one.
photo
photo by Sheri Dixon
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Looking for Shiny and New- Boring Old News Need Not Apply
I love turning my computer on in the morning.
The first thing that happens is it makes little chirpy happybird noises. Then the weather comes on screen, followed by the Yahoo start page and the day's top headlines.
You've seen this- on the right is a box with the top 10 things people are typing into their search engines for more information on. For weeks "BP" or "oil spill" or "gulf of mexico" were right in the top 5. Then as the whole deal dragged on and on and on it became very apparent that we as a nation have collective ADD- we can't stay focused on anything for too long if it stays the same- even if it's horrible like non-stop hemorrhaging of oil into the waters of the Gulf.
Because here's the thing.
It hasn't changed. It's still the same (awful)footage of gushing brown/black yack spewing up from the bottom of the dimly-lit ocean floor. Every day makes it more awful, more disastrous, yet because nothing has happened to make it EXCITING for us again, we've become bored and turned away.
'Round about Memorial Day "oil spill" was sandwiched between "gas grills" and "family activities".
Now it's not there at all. It's dropped right off the radar of things most googled and been replaced (as of July 3rd) with (in order, no less)-
Elin Nordegren
Lindsay Lohan
Hugh Laurie
Victoria Beckham
Gas Grills
Carrie Prejean
Dollywood
Designer Sunglasses
Steve Jobs
Family Activities
Apparently what we need is something to remind us it's still there- not enough to, yanno, hurt anyone, but enough to regain our tiny shallow attention spans.
Like a giant fissure opening up from the fractured ocean floor and hoards of glow in the dark purple fanged eels spewing forth, or the tar balls washing up onto the beaches melding together into the spitting images of various saints- SOMETHING that would catch our fancy, tickle our interest get us back to making this front and center again, where it sort of belongs.
On accounta it's gonna affect all of us everywhere for a very long long time.
But we live in a Sound Byte Society and the media knows just how much we can absorb at one time and plays the news accordingly. Because if we get too depressed, too outraged, too despondent, we might, just maybe, turn the news off altogether. And that would make the advertisers very sad.
As an example- the top stories for easy viewing and digestion today are as follows-
"Retail Chains on the Ropes"- a sobering view of the top 10 large stores, some of them like RiteAid or Zales, household brands, that are floundering, perhaps fatally. The economy is so bad that not only the luxury items as sold by Zales, but our daily needs items as sold at the corner drug store, aren't enough to keep these bastions of consumerism afloat.
That's bad.
Next is "Millions of Jobs Lost Forever". *Wow*. What a sobering bummer THAT is. Reminding us that the recent recession(s) have eliminated alot of jobs from the days when Life was Good and everyone deserved not just a chicken in every pot, but a brand new house to cook it in and a brand new SUV to haul it home from the store with.
That's REALLY bad. Wait. Gimme a minute...
The third top story is "Schwarzenegger Slashes Pay", a happy little ditty of government budgets actually making headway at becoming not only less wasteful, but possibly even being able to being balanced- where could this plan possibly go wrong?
It could go wrong by every California state employee going just that much deeper into debt or disappearing for good under the waters of foreclosure and defaults that this pretty substantial cut in pay they're all being faced with will accomplish.
OW. Bad, bad, bad, BAD- MAKE THE SAD SERIOUS SHIT STOP!
Finally- just as we reach our limit of gloom, there she is as the 4th most important story we as Americans need to pay attention to- full page and in all her glory- "Britney Spears' Fashion Blunder".
And Boy Howdy does she deliver. From the inexplicably cleated neon sneakers to the knee high tube sox to the short shorts and tank top that shows (and not in a good way) her "foundation garments" underneath, and in one shining moment all those unpleasant bad economy feelings are vanquished as we take a quick glance at what we ourselves are wearing and being able to conjure up relief, smugness, satisfaction and yea verily even superiority because even if I'm wearing Goodwill flannel jammie pants and my rattiest tie-dyed in high school 35 years ago t-shirt, I'm stylin' finer than Ms. Spears right at this particular moment.
So really. How bad can all that other stuff really be?
News-like website 1
American Consumer 0
The first thing that happens is it makes little chirpy happybird noises. Then the weather comes on screen, followed by the Yahoo start page and the day's top headlines.
You've seen this- on the right is a box with the top 10 things people are typing into their search engines for more information on. For weeks "BP" or "oil spill" or "gulf of mexico" were right in the top 5. Then as the whole deal dragged on and on and on it became very apparent that we as a nation have collective ADD- we can't stay focused on anything for too long if it stays the same- even if it's horrible like non-stop hemorrhaging of oil into the waters of the Gulf.
Because here's the thing.
It hasn't changed. It's still the same (awful)footage of gushing brown/black yack spewing up from the bottom of the dimly-lit ocean floor. Every day makes it more awful, more disastrous, yet because nothing has happened to make it EXCITING for us again, we've become bored and turned away.
'Round about Memorial Day "oil spill" was sandwiched between "gas grills" and "family activities".
Now it's not there at all. It's dropped right off the radar of things most googled and been replaced (as of July 3rd) with (in order, no less)-
Elin Nordegren
Lindsay Lohan
Hugh Laurie
Victoria Beckham
Gas Grills
Carrie Prejean
Dollywood
Designer Sunglasses
Steve Jobs
Family Activities
Apparently what we need is something to remind us it's still there- not enough to, yanno, hurt anyone, but enough to regain our tiny shallow attention spans.
Like a giant fissure opening up from the fractured ocean floor and hoards of glow in the dark purple fanged eels spewing forth, or the tar balls washing up onto the beaches melding together into the spitting images of various saints- SOMETHING that would catch our fancy, tickle our interest get us back to making this front and center again, where it sort of belongs.
On accounta it's gonna affect all of us everywhere for a very long long time.
But we live in a Sound Byte Society and the media knows just how much we can absorb at one time and plays the news accordingly. Because if we get too depressed, too outraged, too despondent, we might, just maybe, turn the news off altogether. And that would make the advertisers very sad.
As an example- the top stories for easy viewing and digestion today are as follows-
"Retail Chains on the Ropes"- a sobering view of the top 10 large stores, some of them like RiteAid or Zales, household brands, that are floundering, perhaps fatally. The economy is so bad that not only the luxury items as sold by Zales, but our daily needs items as sold at the corner drug store, aren't enough to keep these bastions of consumerism afloat.
That's bad.
Next is "Millions of Jobs Lost Forever". *Wow*. What a sobering bummer THAT is. Reminding us that the recent recession(s) have eliminated alot of jobs from the days when Life was Good and everyone deserved not just a chicken in every pot, but a brand new house to cook it in and a brand new SUV to haul it home from the store with.
That's REALLY bad. Wait. Gimme a minute...
The third top story is "Schwarzenegger Slashes Pay", a happy little ditty of government budgets actually making headway at becoming not only less wasteful, but possibly even being able to being balanced- where could this plan possibly go wrong?
It could go wrong by every California state employee going just that much deeper into debt or disappearing for good under the waters of foreclosure and defaults that this pretty substantial cut in pay they're all being faced with will accomplish.
OW. Bad, bad, bad, BAD- MAKE THE SAD SERIOUS SHIT STOP!
Finally- just as we reach our limit of gloom, there she is as the 4th most important story we as Americans need to pay attention to- full page and in all her glory- "Britney Spears' Fashion Blunder".
And Boy Howdy does she deliver. From the inexplicably cleated neon sneakers to the knee high tube sox to the short shorts and tank top that shows (and not in a good way) her "foundation garments" underneath, and in one shining moment all those unpleasant bad economy feelings are vanquished as we take a quick glance at what we ourselves are wearing and being able to conjure up relief, smugness, satisfaction and yea verily even superiority because even if I'm wearing Goodwill flannel jammie pants and my rattiest tie-dyed in high school 35 years ago t-shirt, I'm stylin' finer than Ms. Spears right at this particular moment.
So really. How bad can all that other stuff really be?
News-like website 1
American Consumer 0
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Let the Spin Begin
So, there's this oil spill, see?
Not a little one- like the iridescent amoebas floating in puddles under parked cars-but one of truly epic proportions and with no end or edges in sight.
This one is a horror all around- men have lost their lives because of it, their families changed forever by the deaths. Men and women are getting sick because of it, working tirelessly to assist in what can't even be described as a "clean up" because cleaning up is something that's done after a fact, and this is still firmly in the middle of "during", and can't even be described as "containment" because something this huge, this transient-yet-suffocating cannot be boxed, vacuumed, skimmed or dissolved.
Whole communities that depend on the Gulf for a livelihood are facing a very long haul before they can fish there again, though people who live on the ocean face disaster every season from hurricanes, from Acts of Nature- literally farming the waters is as tenuous as farming the land, and as harsh.
And there is one more industry that depends on the Gulf waters and beaches for its income- the tourist trade.
So it shouldn't have come as a surprise last night when a tourism spokesperson for The Sunshine State came smiling on TV for his interview- assuring people that Florida's Gulf Coast was still a prime vacation choice- that unlike those nasty stinky gooey blackened beaches of Louisiana, the waters of Florida are still clear, the beaches still pure- only a "shimmer" of oil on the surface.
Really.
No shit.
He said "shimmer" with a straight face- encouraging families to come frolic in the waters-turned-liquid-rainbows because of the shimmery magic of petroleum.
You know- like the surface of your bathtub shimmers when you add that scented Calgon Bath Oil.
So I tried twisting my brain into Tourism configuration...
"Hey, ladies! Yanno how swimming in the ocean is so DRYING to your skin? Come to the Gulf Coast- where our shimmering waters will naturally moisturize your skin while you enjoy our salty surf- like a day at the spa".
"Hey, Kids! Yanno how your parents are always ruining your fun and not letting you swim when all those poison jellyfish come ashore? Not THIS year!"
"Hey, Dad! Yanno how your favorite vacation pastime is setting shit on fire? Imagine your family's wonderment when you actually set fire to WATER! Top THAT, DisneyWorld!"
That's as far as I got before I threw up a little in my mouth and felt a tiny portion of my soul withering up and blowing away, so I stopped there.
Guess I'm just not cut out for Public Relations...
Not a little one- like the iridescent amoebas floating in puddles under parked cars-but one of truly epic proportions and with no end or edges in sight.
This one is a horror all around- men have lost their lives because of it, their families changed forever by the deaths. Men and women are getting sick because of it, working tirelessly to assist in what can't even be described as a "clean up" because cleaning up is something that's done after a fact, and this is still firmly in the middle of "during", and can't even be described as "containment" because something this huge, this transient-yet-suffocating cannot be boxed, vacuumed, skimmed or dissolved.
Whole communities that depend on the Gulf for a livelihood are facing a very long haul before they can fish there again, though people who live on the ocean face disaster every season from hurricanes, from Acts of Nature- literally farming the waters is as tenuous as farming the land, and as harsh.
And there is one more industry that depends on the Gulf waters and beaches for its income- the tourist trade.
So it shouldn't have come as a surprise last night when a tourism spokesperson for The Sunshine State came smiling on TV for his interview- assuring people that Florida's Gulf Coast was still a prime vacation choice- that unlike those nasty stinky gooey blackened beaches of Louisiana, the waters of Florida are still clear, the beaches still pure- only a "shimmer" of oil on the surface.
Really.
No shit.
He said "shimmer" with a straight face- encouraging families to come frolic in the waters-turned-liquid-rainbows because of the shimmery magic of petroleum.
You know- like the surface of your bathtub shimmers when you add that scented Calgon Bath Oil.
So I tried twisting my brain into Tourism configuration...
"Hey, ladies! Yanno how swimming in the ocean is so DRYING to your skin? Come to the Gulf Coast- where our shimmering waters will naturally moisturize your skin while you enjoy our salty surf- like a day at the spa".
"Hey, Kids! Yanno how your parents are always ruining your fun and not letting you swim when all those poison jellyfish come ashore? Not THIS year!"
"Hey, Dad! Yanno how your favorite vacation pastime is setting shit on fire? Imagine your family's wonderment when you actually set fire to WATER! Top THAT, DisneyWorld!"
That's as far as I got before I threw up a little in my mouth and felt a tiny portion of my soul withering up and blowing away, so I stopped there.
Guess I'm just not cut out for Public Relations...
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Siddown Matt, and Let the Lady Talk
My dad was a news photographer- and a gifted one.
For years he accompanied the reporters to the stories, recording the visual aspect that would catch the readers' eye even moreso than the headline- a thousand words and all that.
I remember him coming home from football games, sometimes scuffed up from being inadvertently tackled at the sidelines- that telephoto lens sure messes with depth perception.
I remember him coming home from celebrity interviews, sometimes with an autograph.
I remember most vividly him coming home from the sad stories- accidents, fires, tragedies of all sorts, and almost without exception he would've taken his photos and retreated quickly before the reporter started their part.
What he couldn't stomach were the questions. Not well thought out information gathering journalistic inquiries, but those the reporter perceived as such.
"Mr. Jones- you've just lost everything you own to the tornado that went through last night- how do you feel?"
"Mrs. Smith- you're very lucky to have survived that auto wreck- how does it feel that the rest of your family didn't make it out of the car before it exploded?"
If the average reader gasps and is tempted to throttle the reporter, it's considered "hard hitting coverage".
The reality is that it's not. It's insensitive, shock value garbage just a little lower on the journalism food chain than supermarket tabloids. At least those have no basis in real life and don't tear the guts out of suffering families.
Even your average kindergartner can't help but ask incredulously, "How do you THINK it feels, you dumbass?"
Or, if the reporter really has no idea of what to ask, the next best thing is to ask what you've got loudly or rudely and call it "edgy".
Matt Lauer is the master of this form of "hard hitting, edgy journalism".
You can tell that he thinks he's doing great- that his role as anchorman for the morning show will be validated if he gets heavy-handed with the guests.
Sorry, Matt. It's not. All you accomplish is to be completely unlikeable by coming across as rude and pushy.
An interview is basically a conversation between two people even though the interviewer generally has an idea of what he/she wants to cover in the allotted time frame.
Cutting off the answer to the question you've just asked is rude, no matter who you're talking to.
Raising your voice to someone is rude, especially if that someone is your guest. On your show. Your morning show.
If I see a Matt Lauer interview coming on the TV, I turn it off.
Yanno who gives an excellent, calm, thought-provoking interview?
Ann Curry.
Class act all the way.
Just once I'd like to stick a microphone in Matt's face and say, "Matt Lauer- no matter how hard you try, how loudly you interrogate or how abruptly you cut off your guests mid-sentence, you will never hold a candle to the reporting skills of Ann Curry."
"How does that make you feel?"
For years he accompanied the reporters to the stories, recording the visual aspect that would catch the readers' eye even moreso than the headline- a thousand words and all that.
I remember him coming home from football games, sometimes scuffed up from being inadvertently tackled at the sidelines- that telephoto lens sure messes with depth perception.
I remember him coming home from celebrity interviews, sometimes with an autograph.
I remember most vividly him coming home from the sad stories- accidents, fires, tragedies of all sorts, and almost without exception he would've taken his photos and retreated quickly before the reporter started their part.
What he couldn't stomach were the questions. Not well thought out information gathering journalistic inquiries, but those the reporter perceived as such.
"Mr. Jones- you've just lost everything you own to the tornado that went through last night- how do you feel?"
"Mrs. Smith- you're very lucky to have survived that auto wreck- how does it feel that the rest of your family didn't make it out of the car before it exploded?"
If the average reader gasps and is tempted to throttle the reporter, it's considered "hard hitting coverage".
The reality is that it's not. It's insensitive, shock value garbage just a little lower on the journalism food chain than supermarket tabloids. At least those have no basis in real life and don't tear the guts out of suffering families.
Even your average kindergartner can't help but ask incredulously, "How do you THINK it feels, you dumbass?"
Or, if the reporter really has no idea of what to ask, the next best thing is to ask what you've got loudly or rudely and call it "edgy".
Matt Lauer is the master of this form of "hard hitting, edgy journalism".
You can tell that he thinks he's doing great- that his role as anchorman for the morning show will be validated if he gets heavy-handed with the guests.
Sorry, Matt. It's not. All you accomplish is to be completely unlikeable by coming across as rude and pushy.
An interview is basically a conversation between two people even though the interviewer generally has an idea of what he/she wants to cover in the allotted time frame.
Cutting off the answer to the question you've just asked is rude, no matter who you're talking to.
Raising your voice to someone is rude, especially if that someone is your guest. On your show. Your morning show.
If I see a Matt Lauer interview coming on the TV, I turn it off.
Yanno who gives an excellent, calm, thought-provoking interview?
Ann Curry.
Class act all the way.
Just once I'd like to stick a microphone in Matt's face and say, "Matt Lauer- no matter how hard you try, how loudly you interrogate or how abruptly you cut off your guests mid-sentence, you will never hold a candle to the reporting skills of Ann Curry."
"How does that make you feel?"
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