Editorial v. News

I was just knee deep in a rant over an article that ran today in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which "endorses Barack Obama for president". I know there is historical precedent for major newspapers to endorse political candidates, but I firmly believe it is inappropriate for the news to do anything other than REPORT THE NEWS.

Anyway, my rant was misguided. I was linked to the first article by this article, which makes a convincing case damning the Post-Gazette. The article begins with, "Barack Obama picked up the endorsement today of one of Pennsylvania's major newspapers," and I took that at face value.

But then I did a little searching. The Post-Gazette article doesn't specify what section in the paper the article ran in, but a little digging showed me that it ran in the editorial section, which is the only place in a newspaper that such an article is not only permissible, but expected. The editorial section is specifically designated as a place for the expression of opinions.

This is not to say that newspapers don't endorse politicians regularly, even if they don't come out and say it, it is evident in the articles. For all the efforts of the latter article calling out the Post-Gazette for bias, however, to be honest, the latter article seems a lot more biased and quick to jump the gun than the first.

I am lazy

I know I haven't posted in days, just been busy. I gave a presentation at a high school today and I had to get up at 5 a.m. to get there on time, I am a total waste of space right now, I do not know how I did it in high school.

Check this story out, pretty shocking. Although I am completely against the death penalty, I do understand that it is legal. I just feel like this is a "slippery slope" type case that to me is several steps backwards.

State Wants Child Rapist Executed

Katie Couric: The News Barometer

Check out this very interesting article about the media, well, kind of about Katie Couric, but the undertones say some interesting things about the state of the media.

The "Truth" Is Not Important

Yesterday I wrote about a group of Florida teenage girls that are accused of beating another girl and videotaping the incident. The news person in me says accused of, yes, obviously there is video, but it's that whole pesky innocent until proven guilty thing. Anyway, CNN is currently rocking this gem as a top headline: Suspects in video beating could get life in prison. This is extremely speculative, and leads the reader to believe that this is currently -- or will be soon-- at trial. This just happened on Tuesday, so this is really just the State Attorney running his mouth despite the gag order issued by the court. Beyond that, the article itself isn't even really about that as much as it is about the epidemic of "girl fighting."

Obviously these girls deserve to be punished, and I do not know enough about the legal system to say what their punishment should be, but I just think the headline is a bit of an exaggeration.

YouTube May Fan The Fire, But It Doesn't Force The Hand

I don't even know what to say about this video, about 6 teenage girls in Lakeland beating another girl. The father of the victim spoke out in this story. He makes some good points and to be honest, is a lot more composed than I would be if a group of girls beat my daughter. There is some truth to the fact the girls may not have beaten this girl so severely if they didn't have a great place to boast about it, such as youtube.

I'm not a violent person, so I have to say I really just don't understand fighting at all, but one of the suspects mothers justified her daughter's actions with this statement (from this article):

"The mother of one of the girls said the victim was the first to post threats online.'She said she was going to kick their you-know-whats and how slutty they are and calling them much worse names than sluts,' mother Christina Garcia said."

Yeah, because that totally makes it ok that your daughter brutally attacked a defenseless girl.
In related news, here is a sample of other similar stories I found on CNN today:

MySpace Shows Teacher Getting Beaten

Kids beat their art teacher and posted the video on MySpace, principal said teacher provoked the students...

2 Teen Girls To Face Charges In Grove City Hit List

2 teen girls make a list of people to murder...they may get expelled.

3rd grader speaks out about plot to harm teacher

Nine 8-year-olds plotted to kill their teacher...

Breasts=Good, Penis=Bad

I haven't posted all day because I went straight from work to a sneak preview for Forgetting Sara Marshall. I didn't go as press, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

I don't have a review of the movie as much as I have a review of men.

As we left the theater, the organizers were outside getting comments from the viewers. 80% of what I heard mens mouth's was "sooo funny, too much dick."

Seriously? Aside from the fact that penis was only shown in two scenes of the movie and it was done quite obviously to signify a kind of cyclical motion, that is such bullshit. Do these guys realize how absurdly low the amount of gratuitous penis in film is compared to that of gratuitous boobs? Nearly every R movie I have seen...well, ever, has women's breasts in it. I would say 99% of the time this is for NO REASON and in no way contributes to the quality of the film. But this is something that everyone has become desensitized to, women and men.

God forbid men be forced to watch penis on screen for five seconds..uhg. I am just so annoyed, I am barely forming complete sentences.

There were a few interesting local stories today, I'll get to them tomorrow, I'm tired.

China China China

Although I found the headline Is China paying for US taxpayer rebates? to be a bit misleading, overall the article is pretty informative about where money comes from and goes to when it comes to the federal government and these economic stimulus checks that most people have coming to them.

I knew a lot of the basics but I didn't realize so many countries, including China, had a stake in our debt. And, not being an economic whiz, I am trying to wrap my mind around why we have all this debt, but other countries are able to not only not have it, but help us out with ours.

This post makes me realize that I need to start talking about the Olympics. Soon.

Monkeys: The Cute AND Funny Double Threat

I really want to know how video's like this one make it on to the CNN home page three days after the fact. Yeah, the story is funny, and the first time I saw it I wondered why it wasn't on CNN, but that was Friday, and now it is Monday. But I guess people don't care, because a monkey in a diaper stopping traffic is funny on all the days of the week.

Facebook Defines Everything

This article about the delicate nature of relationships and facebook made me laugh/sad about my generation. It is so sadly true.

Before facebook, how could anyone ever know for sure if you're on or off with Billy McFrat? Now everyone knows within seconds, thanks to that cutesy little heart (broken or whole), what your status is.

I do think it is interesting that CNN reported on this phenomenon, I would have expected something more like an iReport than an actual story.

My grandpa has always hated Ted Turner...

I am using my fiance's computer, which is glorious because it has two monitors and isn't as terrible as my busted laptop, but awful because he somehow exists without having Microsoft Office on his computer, so I'm typing directly in to the blog, which I hate! But I digress...

Anyhow, I got this link sent to me the other day.

I kind of already knew that Ted Turner was crazy, but some of his comments were a bit surprising. To be honest, I do agree with bits of what he said, that I'm not going to go in to, but overall I think this article blows his comments out of proportion.

Realistically, Turner is a man; a US citizen with with a right to freedom of speech. Yes, he owns a media empire, but his comments were not made on CNN, nor were they presented as fact. People say a lot of crazy shit on news-style talk shows, for reference, look for anything ever said by Ann Coulter.

And beyond that, his own bias does not, in my opinion, reflect on CNN's coverage of the news. As I have said before, more than anything else, media bias stems from money, not politics. Obviously there is bias of all kinds in the media, including liberal and conservative, but Ted Turner's "crazy" opinions don't have any more influence than Rupert Murdoch's.

It is always good to be critical of what you read and hear, and as a public figure, Turner is obviously subject to stricter criticism, but I don't think his personal opinions are cause for an article on a web site devoted to "exposing and combating liberal media bias." While I applaud the efforts of website like News Busters because I think what they do is important, no matter their political stance, Ted Turner is not the news and thus does not qualify for "busting."

Recession?

This story about job cuts made it above the fold of both CNN and MSNBC this morning. What I don’t understand is, why does everyone keep saying we may be heading into a recession?

“For the first time, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledged Wednesday that the country could be heading toward a recession, saying federal policymakers are ‘fighting against the wind’ in combating it. Many other economists and the public believe the recession already has arrived.”

I’ll be the first one to say that I am not an economical whiz, but I keep reading these articles and hearing about the housing collapse, losing 80,000 jobs in one month, etc. etc., so with all that happening, at what point are we actually in a recession? It is kind of like how we “never went to war with Vietnam.” What is the harm in saying the truth and working to fix it instead of ignoring it and making people paranoid over the prospect of recession? The article says the job cuts were a result of employers concerns about a potential recession, so obviously not saying it isn’t really helping anyone.

All of his makes so gosh darn excited about having graduated college in December.

I am lazy sometimes

I am feeling some news overload so I'm not going to make a productive post today, but I promise something tomorrow since I am off work!

Check this out, I have no commentary, just an interesting read.

Wal-Mart Rhymes With Heart

Today I have a good example of the power of the media. Yesterday, Wal-Mart announced that a brain-damaged former employee can keep her money. The headline doesn’t make much sense but they have limited space, I’m not sure I could have done better.

The article explains it pretty succinctly, so I can’t even really get into it, just read it. This family could have been stuck dealing with this lawsuit and expensive lawyer bills for years, but because of coverage by the media, Wal-Mart dropped the lawsuit. For some reason, cough cough bad press, Wal-Mart had a change of heart, and now sympathizes with this family. I still think Wal-Mart sucks but obviously there is someone in their PR department with half a brain.

Old news has feelings too, I guess

Judge Orders Whites Out, Lectures Blacks

I cannot figure out why this video is the top story on CNN.com. This happened last Friday, and the media has been all over it since then. The second link is to a video that is old news too, this story about a 10 pound four-year-old hit the AP wire on Saturday morning.

I don’t know anyone that checks CNN's homepages to find out what happened four days ago, that is why they have archives.

This story, Truckers Plan Possible Fuel-Cost Strike, finally made its way to the CNN home page, which is great except the original story was postedback on the 26th.