Yesterday’s Lessons: June 28, 2007

• I don’t need a job that makes me millions or that gives me authority over other people, or that presents me with endless opportunities. I just want to be happy doing what I’m doing. I’ve had shitty jobs that I loved going to every day. But most people frown upon people wanting to be happy at their job because it’s a weird, generally accepted thing that most people aren’t, so it’s something that we all should have to suffer through. Obviously, if no one would do the crappy jobs then we wouldn’t be able to function as an economy. But if no one looked out for their own happiness and sought to enjoy what they did for a living, then we wouldn’t have brilliant writers, actors, musicians, scientists, and all the OTHER people who don’t do shitty jobs and yet still make the world go ’round.
• I am sometimes a coward.
• The storage/bicycle area on our basement floor is absolutely terrifying.
• The differences in the way my body handles nervousness and stress become more and more noticeable the farther away I get from my figure skating career. That is, it is getting worse.
• I am generally pretty forgiving, partly because I don’t like to hate people and I don’t like to be mad at people or be on bad terms with them; and partly because I am always diplomatic and I always remind myself that people make stupid mistakes. Generally, I judge stupidity much more harshly than any action.
• I make too many decisions based on the future.
• Actor Elias Koteas could TOTALLY be Elliot’s fraternal twin brother.
• I’m becoming cleaner and tidier the older I get.
• A tortoise can move surprisingly fast.

UPDATE: After posting this I was examining the IMDb.com trivia for Christopher Meloni, and apparently I’m not the only one who noticed the Elias Koteas thing.

PAUL POTTS WINS!!!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=K_5W4t_CBzg

It took me a while to get this up, but rest assured, Paul Potts was indeed the ultimate winner of “Britain’s Got Talent”.

Jon, Stephen, Bill, and Tucker

Yesterday I was on youtube.com watching Jon Stewart on The O’Reilly Factor from September 2004. If you haven’t seen it, watch it:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=orwXGlXP2O0

You should also watch Stephen Colbert on Bill O’Reilly’s show from January 2006:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=DJvY_RftA4I

I adore Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and Bill O’Reilly usually makes my blood boil (and I therefore like to watch clips from time to time for the same reason I watch Fox News: catharsis), and they are intriguing interviews. If you can call them interviews. There are plenty of things worth discussing- the “stoned slackers” thing, how O’Reilly admitted he took it personally when John Kerry went past him to talk to Stewart, how O’Reilly likes to pick on guests the way an eight-year-old does, how he thinks Colbert owes him for acting like him, etc.

But there’s one issue I want to focus on: O’Reilly interrogates the TV hosts with disdain, appearing frustrated by and confused about why they have so much influence in the media and in our culture. It seems he just can’t understand how he is hated by so many while Colbert is so popular and while people pay so much attention to Stewart’s “dopey show”.

Stewart makes a good point, a point he also touched on when he was on CNN’s crossfire in October 2004: The Daily Show (and The Colbert Report, which didn’t exist at the time of Stewart’s interview with O’Reilly) is not a competitor to news programs.

I continously ran that point through my head last night while I was trying to go to sleep, imagining/fantasizing about what I would say to Bill O’Reilly in Stewart’s shoes, or if O’Reilly asked me to be on his show (clearly I live in reality). The Daily Show and The O’Reilly Factor- and Crossfire and all other newscasts – are not competitors.

Well, they’re not supposed to be. And yet, increasingly, it seems that they are. Why?

What occurred to me was this: People like Bill O’Reilly are looking at the issue from the wrong angle, an angle by which the answer will do them no good because it is either obvious or irrelevant or both. O’Reilly is asking, What is their secret? What are they doing that is so attractive? What is so great about Jon Stewart, or Stephen Colbert, that makes young people and politicians want to pay attention to them instead of us? I think that goes without saying. They’re funny. Their shows are funny- and they’re smart. Smart is good and funny is good, but funny and smart is killer. Who doesn’t like intelligent humor that can also make fart jokes? Who doesn’t want to laugh? And at a time when people are increasingly disillusioned with the current administration, it’s a nice relief to see a show that highlights the absurdity of today’s politics. Duh.

The question O’Reilly and the other news professionals should be asking is not what is so great about The Daily Show that is seducing audiences, but rather, what is so wrong with our news programs that audiences are abandoning ship and turning to Comedy Central for news?

Surely there are numerous answers to that question, and I’m sure I don’t know all of them. But here’s a big one that comes to mind: It isn’t that The Daily Show is upping their newsiness or trying to make the transition from fake news to true journalism. It’s that so many news shows have downgraded so severely to infotainment, to attempts at making the news as entertaining as CSI or Law & Order or 24, while ridding themselves of quality journalism and thorough news. Thus, it isn’t news program vs. news program, and it isn’t comedy show vs. news program. Now, it’s entertainment program vs. entertainment program. And if we the public are deciding which entertainment program to watch, well, the choice for many of us is obvious. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are just better entertainment.

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report aren’t the ones with a responsibility to American citizens; the news programs and journalists are. As Stewart pointed out when Crossfire’s Tucker Carlson criticized him for not asking John Kerry tough-enough questions, it’s alarming when the journalists are looking at a comedy show for their “cues on integrity”. Actually, sometimes it feels like Stewart and Colbert come closer to real journalism than the rest of the bunch, in that they extend their skepticism, their criticism, and their praise to all political parties, all politicians, all sides of an issue, instead of fashioning their stories to an agenda.

In short, these are my words of advice for the mass media so whiny about ratings and shows like those on Comedy Central: get your heads out of your butts, open your eyes, buck up, and get your shit together.

 

Damaging Passivity and Ignored Qualities

Writer and blogger Glenn Greenwald had some things to say regarding Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen and the sorry state of mainstream media:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/19/cohen/index.html

This was my favorite part: “Indeed, it is so terribly unfair to investigate powerful government officials because, as “white-collar types,” they have a “morbid fear of jail” — in contrast, of course, to blue-collar types, and darker ones still, who really do not mind prison at all.” I laughed out loud, and I was happy that he mentioned a non-politician celebrity like Martha Stewart, because I also thought of the poor, mistreated Ms. Hilton, and how many of those opposed to her going to jail no doubt are so touched by her genuine fear of the place. As one of my favorite make-fun-of-celebrities blogs, thesuperficial.com, said:

–So the big medical reason that got Paris Hilton released was that she wasn’t happy in prison. Which, I always thought, was sort of the whole point. Was she expecting to ride on unicorns and dance under waterfalls? It’s fucking prison. I’m pretty sure the inmates who get daily anal rapings are pretty upset too, but nobody’s letting them go home. The moral of the story is: if you’re ever put in prison just put on a frowny face and they’ll let you go. Oh, and make sure you’re Paris Hilton. That last part’s pretty important.–

The comments Cohen made about dark politics, and how we’d do well to just leave the lights off, are appalling. Greenwald made the following point but I feel the need to repeat: Cohen’s passively accepting that politics and politicians are corrupt and asserting that it’s best we don’t know what’s going on (or worse, that we look the other way) shows how miserably media are failing at their watchdog role. Which is especially intriguing to me, because the chapter I just finished last night in The Elements of Journalism was all about the monitoring of power, how citizens are increasingly looking to bloggers and independent news outlets to be the watchdogs, and how the growing conglomeration of news media is murdering the press’ ability to effectively monitor anything.

Plus, it’s disheartening to hear a supposed journalist phlegmatically point out that politics are a dark art and there is nothing we can do about it so we might as well just hand over our balls and let politicians have their way with us. Not only is it a blow to the entire principle of monitoring power, but it also ignores something I think is important: that politics SHOULDN’T be a dark art, and politicians SHOULDN’T evoke in our minds images of dark lords summoning demonic powers to take hold of their constituents. All the while performing sexually deviant acts with young boys, pages, interns, male escorts, and black (gasp!) prostitutes behind closed doors, of course.

I am frequently the first one among friends to explain my general distaste for politics. It all seems so corrupt, and we should all be wary of those who desire so much power. But there are a few good ones here and there, genuine ones, frequently overlooked in the midst of all those who long ago sold their souls. Václav Havel comes to mind. Regardless of policy, of strategy, of success or failure in economics or foreign policy, he was someone who was elected in the truest sense- he wasn’t even a candidate!- but took the job because his people wanted him to be their leader, and he did the best he could. Cases like these are rare, but they should remind us that politics shouldn’t be the black hole that they are now. Some of today’s politicians were probably sincere when they were green, and only turned to the dark side when they got sucked in by the pull of The Scumbags.

Which brings to mind an important quality that we should look for in politicians, one that we forget or ignore: the ability to function without being seduced by bribery and money, sex, drugs, and unwarranted power.

As for journalists, I don’t think there are major qualities that we don’t look for. Rather, more and more those qualities just aren’t there.

Yesterday’s Lessons: June 17, 2007

Here are some things I learned yesterday:

• The thought of someone I love thinking I am ungrateful causes me great, great pain.
• Tom Cruise is freakishly good at the breakdown/psycho moments in his roles. Naturally. He also has this weird glow-fire in his eyes that totally freaks me out.
• Coke Zero is not as refreshing as Diet Coke.
• I do not like sauerkraut pierogies.
• I can’t stay upset around my boyfriend.
• The world may be salvageable: even a pundit on FOX News said yesterday that it was so sad that we knew more about Paris Hilton than about the latest NASA news.
• It is unlikely that spiders are actually stalking me and following me into whatever car I’m in. Rather, there have probably always been at least a few around, but I never noticed them. However, this does not make things better. Actually, it’s worse.
• Even I like to pray sometimes.

Paul Potts in the semi-finals on “Britain’s Got Talent”

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rDB9zwlXrB8

Because I’m obsessed with Paul Potts, here’s his wonderful performance for the semi-finals on “Britain’s Got Talent”. Apparently the finals are this coming Sunday, and I will be praying that he wins!

Apathy, affection, and at the end, an ass-clown

My dad, one of my largest resources for interesting articles and other miscellaneous information, sent me an article by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. The rabbi is concerned with the state of families and children, particularly teenagers. His piece caught my attention because I, too, worry about the state of mind and lifestyle of modern kids-I explored a specific aspect of my concerns, writing skills, a few entries ago. To read Rabbi Boteach’s whole piece, go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-shmuley-boteach/americas-uninspired-chil_b_52077.html, or visit his website at http://www.shmuley.com/.

Here are some paraphrased points that made my brain itch the most:

• Kids and grown-ups alike are made to feel like they’re worthless if they’re not rich.
• Kids “waste their time with an endless array of inane pursuits”, and are increasingly apathetic toward everything.
• Honest affection between parents and kids is diminishing.
• Kids these days are under-appreciated, particularly because of the financial burden they present.
• The title theme of his article, that children today are deprived of inspiration.

I was also intrigued by some of the comments on the article from readers:

• That these worries are tired and those of every generation, and that we “just have to be motivated to leave the world a better place than you found it.” (Reader: seanpromo)
• That, “seanpromo, comic books or rock and roll are nowhere near as numbing as television is today.” (Reader: asanismasa)
• “When a man can’t make a living wage because of the number of illegal [sic] in the country this is what you get!” (Reader: dadw5boys)

Rabbi Boteach caught my attention with his introductory point that people today are made to feel worthless if they aren’t wealthy. I felt a pang in my heart when I read this because, while aware of this ridiculous standard that has flown out of control in the wake of the ever-growing trends of socialites, reality TV “stars”, and get-rich-and-famous-quick schemes and plots on television, I still find myself falling victim. I have been searching for a job since April, and have not found one. As a college grad with my wazoo filled with student-loan debt, unemployment is stressful for obvious reasons. But additionally, I have found myself overwhelmed, frustrated, and plagued by feelings of worthlessness because I am without a job, without a solid direction in life, and I’m 22, which means that my life is basically over so I might as well just give up now. Unwittingly, or at least unwillingly, I’ve somehow bought into the idea that we must all become pop stars, Pulitzer Prize winners, or genius millionaires or celebrities by the time we’re of legal drinking age, otherwise the game is over and I must relinquish whatever potential I had to the next group of 4-year-olds waiting to become the next Bill Gates or Britney Spears. Preferably by way of national TV talent show.

 

I’m not sure I have a solution for this, be it for myself or for the world’s youth, other than the obvious one of reminding myself that such delusions are rubbish or awaiting the day that the media come to their senses and get rid of these silly obsessions with celebrities and fast money. But it is at least nice to see other, sane, intelligent people acknowledging that these views are being fed to us, and even more importantly, disapproving of it.

 

I sometimes wonder if children’s apparent apathy and soul-draining activities aren’t in some ways a result of all this. Rabbi Boteach does imply that the lack of affection and support from parents, and the fact that parents can fall victim to self-deprecating views based on popularity and material success, greatly influences the American youth’s current state of being. But speaking from personal experience, I would say that it is sometimes much easier to do nothing, pretend like you don’t know where your life is going, or even that you don’t care, and spend your time doing mindless things…or blogging…when the culture around you makes you feel ignoble and unimpressive. I know a couple young children who are wild and out of control because they can’t figure out what they do right, or that prefer to just confine themselves to their video games, get no social interaction, and then freak out when they don’t get the attention they want, so they go back to playing video games. It’s an unfortunate and irritating cycle, but it could easily be stopped by parents; it has seemed obvious to me for some time that mostly what these kids need is some encouragement and reassurance- encouragement to think, ask questions, learn, reassurance that they can in fact do things well, and reassurance that they are loved.

 

That last suggestion would probably sit well with the rabbi, since he attributes much of the dissolving affection for parents from kids to the fact that parents are showing less and less affection first. And I imagine there’s probably some truth to that, although I don’t think it’s that odd that a teenager doesn’t want to pour his heart out to his mother because his friends are watching- that seems about right to me.

 

But I think that there must be something more to it than that, and again it is through personal experience that I reach this conclusion: as I got older it became increasingly difficult for me to be affectionate with my parents, be it verbal or physical or both. This didn’t go away after my teenage years. However, my parents have never had a shortage of affection. I take after my dad in that I’m not a naturally mushy person, but he’s not a stereotypical emotionless brick-wall dad, either. And if affection were a tangible item, my mom would have enough surplus to feed the affection-poor masses.

 

Only recently have I really even started to voluntarily hug my parents again, and I don’t think that the affection I displayed as a small girl will ever return. But why can I tell my boyfriend I love him every time we talk, or my best friends that I love them whenever I feel the urge, but not my parents? Perhaps Rabbi Shmuley is right when he says that family is being replaced by friends, and that Hollywood no longer values loving relationships within families. Unless those families have been through hell and are severely dysfunctional, in which case love an affection is okay in small doses in order to show that love still exists. But not expressing it is preferable. This is all very depressing.

 

As for the country’s white-baby birthrate going down because, as the rabbi proposes, our vanity and material greediness have superseded our family values, I chuckled out loud when I read this point. Almost two years ago I started to doubt whether or not I really wanted children. One of my biggest reasons is that I simply like my life the way it is and the way I want it to be. I like having the freedom to do what I want without worrying about a little poopy ball of flesh, and when I picture all the things that I want to accomplish in my life, the images never include a baby. Really, I think that is a valid reason not to have children, if it is in fact how you truly feel. The thing that made me laugh, though, is that I do have other vain reasons for not wanting kids. I don’t want to get fat or get stretchmarks. I don’t want to have a certain body part stretched out to look like a big butterfly net. Plus, kids are just sooooo expensive (and yes, I do feel guilty saying that when just a few weeks ago I had to ask my parents for money. Leave me alone). I want to spend my money on my life, not a little thingy that drools on all my clothes.

 

On the other hand, maybe it’s just easy for me to rationalize since the bottom line, right now, is that I don’t know if I want kids. I’m sure if I woke up one morning and realized I wanted to push a human out of a teeny hole in my body, as appealing as that sounds, then I would be willing to risk the weight and the stretchmarks, and I would be happy to spend money on cute little baby shoes and bottles and breast pumps.

 

Still, if everyone is thinking the way I have been, that may be a problem. Generally I’m in the minority and people affect a wide-eyed, open-mouthed expression of shock when I, especially since I’m female, tell them I might not ever want children. If Rabbi Shmuley is right, and this is an epidemic, then we do indeed have a serious problem on our hands. Even worse is that a lot of those people who would rather have money than kids are still going to have kids, thus making their children’s lives miserable because that will come out in their parenting. I have a friend from high school who was raised that way, and the effects are not good. Not at all.

 

Rabbi’s belief that today’s kids are uninspired ties into the first two reader comments that I highlighted. I tend to agree with the idea, but sometimes I do question what evidence I have since it is true that every generation fears that the demise of the human population is imminent because of the younger ones. I concluded my “Writing Skills of Little Ones” post with the same final idea as reader seanpromo, that ultimately our job is to keep educating kids and keep trying to improve the world no matter what.

 

Nevertheless, I have to agree with the idea that we can’t compare comic books and rock music to Pirate Master and Temptation Island, Mischa Barton’s cellulite on the cover of magazines, and Chris Matthews exploring the sex appeal of politicians. At least comic books were making kids read and showing them good illustrations. Rock music is still music. There’s nothing that can be said for the former examples of current cultural lesions, other than that they are both manifestations and perpetuators of all these social problems addressed by Rabbi Boteach.

 

I have saved the last reader comment for last because it is truly a gem. I can’t tell if his “illegal” error was a typo, as it seems he may have been writing with some rage, or if it was an honest mistake. The latter wouldn’t surprise me, as I have seen similar speech and writing patterns from people making similar arguments. I myself don’t get so up-in-arms about the illegal immigrant population here, because I am aware of the important role they play in our entire economy, and I generally discredit arguments that say that Mexicans are stealing our jobs-because the people who complain about that usually would never accept the jobs that those Mexicans have. But in the spirit of fairness, since we are a country with supposed borders, I can understand if someone wants to worry over illegal immigration.

 

The part that’s funny to me though is the way that this comment fits into the article. That is, not very well. Which doesn’t do much for his argument or his fellow believers’ reputation-no one pays much attention to people who just shoot their argument into random articles when they don’t make sense there. When a man can’t make…that’s what you get? So, literally, what he’s saying is that this is what we get when a man can’t make living wages, and that the reason he can’t get living wages is because of the damned illegals. So…what is what we get? Apathy? A depressed dad who can’t show affection to his wife or children? Hmm. I suppose he could be addressing the article’s statistics of the white birthrate vs. black and Hispanic birthrates, but he would be missing one key point in that nowhere in the article does Rabbi mention illegal immigrant birthrates. Or, indeed, even just immigrant birthrates.

 

Still, it’s nice to see that, if his user name is any indication, dadw5boys is doing his part for the white birthrate.

Paul Potts on “Britain’s Got Talent”

My dad sent me this clip, and I keep watching it over and over again. I find the song, along with the dialogue leading up to it and following it, so cathartic. Then I remind myself that the show is in Britain, and the audience is British. If this were on “America’s Got Talent”, especially since both versions of the show are rather tacky, I can’t imagine the audience, and maybe the judges, would receive this genuine talent so favorably. I never cared for opera that much, or at least I thought I didn’t, but I’m starting to change my mind.

Another reason that the song moves me so much is that it is featured in “Mar Adentro”, or “The Sea Inside”, which is one of my favorite movies, and also very cathartic for me. If you haven’t seen it, you should.

Hooray! for Paul Potts. Big things come in homely packages!

Socialite Sensationalism and Petty Priorities

Lord knows I’m not the only one complaining about all the coverage that Paris Hilton’s jail fiasco, arguably the most important thing ever to have happened on the face of the planet, is getting from all the country’s media outlets. When I visit CNN.com or look at all the news channels on TV, I can’t figure out why I can’t hear what the pundits are saying. Their voices keep sounding softer, and then I realize it’s because I’m screaming on the inside. It drowns out all the Paris-related blabber. Initially, the screaming wasn’t intentional, but if you find yourself looking at expedia.com for plane tickets to Siberia and you start investigating long-term visa requirements, I recommend trying an inside scream or two because, as it turns out, it’s a pretty good technique for relaxation and sanity-preservation. Hang in there.

I’ve been distraught over America’s pop culture and obsessions and media ridiculousness for some time now. It seems that for the last several years this country has been going out of control, and exponentially.

Most cultures have some sort of celebrity culture and following, whether it’s with movie stars, musicians, theologians, philosophers, royal families, politicians, or all of the above. We all have people we look up to, and that admiration can be wonderful because it drives us to create, be original, break records, and succeed. Lots of cultures have tabloids and gossip and we all enjoy talking about other people- ones we know and ones we don’t- as if we knew them personally. Besides, who doesn’t want to be successful, popular, and respected? Who doesn’t want to be considered attractive and well-dressed?

All that stuff is totally normal. To some extent. But one of the reasons I was so eager to start my study-abroad year in Madrid, Spain in 2005 (and one of the reasons I fantasized about never returning) is that I had just about reached my boiling point having to ingest the constant bombardment of nonsense on TV, in movies, in newspapers, online, in magazines, and in conversations around me every day. When I was a kid, Mike Wallace-types didn’t waste their time talking about the recent sexual escapades of B-list actresses, dingbat heiresses, and general wannabes. If a celebrity or a pseudo-celebrity does something truly relevant, then of course that merits mention, a substantial blurb, or even a story. But media that are supposed to be our sources of information, trust, and guides for the world are every day becoming more and more indistinguishable from the tabloids and celebrity gossip columns. That is a problem.

Given that people like Paris Hilton are figures in American pop culture, regardless of whether or not they deserve to be, it’s understandable for Katie Couric to say when covering headlines, “Bla bla bla, hotel heiress Paris Hilton is going to jail for bla bla bla.” And that’s it! Done! Relevant information covered, now we can move on to important things. I’ll even give them a more in-depth report or analysis on the legal issues involved. There have been some questionable legal and judicial aspects of THE HILTON CASE, and if news programs want to seriously look at celebrity justice or other interesting things brought to light by the shenanigans, great. That’s news. But when weather choppers and news photographers are ditching their normal stories to hang around outside the Hilton residence and they’re joining forces with deplorable paparazzi-with whom I’m sure they would normally prefer to avoid any association- it is time to seriously reassess our priorities.

I have, for a few years now, spent lots of time thinking about the role of this über-popular culture, the mass media, their relationship with each other, their relationship with us, their obligation to us, and our obligation to them. I’ve been thinking about this even more for the last week, since the book I just started is The Elements of Journalism, the 2007 updated and revised version, by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, which focuses on all those issues and more.

Here’s the biggest conflict I grapple with: Historically, part of what news media do has been to find the important stories and convey them to us, and to tell us that why story is important, why we should care about it. Sometimes that can be difficult, particularly because we live in a huge world where lots of things are happening all the the time; journalists and producers have to decide what to cover, using their brains, their hearts, ratings pressure, demographic marketing strategies, or whatever. It’s hard, and I’m sure that anywhere there has ever been a form of news, there’s been at least one person to complain that something covered isn’t important- and that something important isn’t being covered enough. So am I being too picky or too stubborn when I say that celebrity gossip and adventures are simply not real news?

On the other hand, it appears that some news people believe, as an ad for one of our local news networks emphasizes, that part of a journalist’s or a reporter’s job is to know what stories the public wants to hear and what stories they care about. If that’s the case, then maybe the media should keep covering stupid stuff, because more and more that’s what Americans seem to be interested in. If no one cared about living vicariously through slutty socialites, then the paparazzi wouldn’t bother taking pictures of them, the tabloids wouldn’t talk about them, MSNBC wouldn’t talk about them, and what they look like when they do things that make them “just like us!” wouldn’t be news. But people do care, and in those people’s minds, a lot of this nonsense is news. So should the news networks follow suit and just give the people what they want?

The thing is, it can work the other way around, too. Often times it seems like paparazzi and tabloids dictate who’s a celebrity and who isn’t, who’s beautiful and who’s ugly, whom we should root for and whom we should root against. There are plenty of people in the spotlight and on red carpets whom I only know about because I’ve seen them on entertainment news shows or in tabloids. And the more they talk about them, the more I know about them, the more I’ll pay attention to them, and then suddenly they’re a celebrity when they haven’t even done anything. If it works this way, then isn’t it the duty of regular national and world news people to say, “Hey! That’s not news!”?

A big part of the problem, to me, is that the relationship between the big news organizations and their audiences seems to be disintegrating. The big news outlets like FOX, MSNBC, many of the network news programs, even CNN, are getting farther and farther away from a relationship with the public. They have their own agenda, magnified by the fact that they’re all owned by other companies and are parts of mega-conglomerations with interests other than informing the public. Given how much people enjoy celebrity news, reality TV stars, and sex scandals of all kinds, it may seem like the networks are simply catering to the whims of their audiences; certainly if someone is interested in gossip, and that gossip is being covered, and coveted, on MSNBC, that person will tune in. But I can’t recall ever hearing even the most celebrity-obsessed citizen complain that CNN really needed to pay more attention to Lindsay Lohan’s bar-crawls or rehab stints. That’s what Entertainment Tonight and Us Weekly are for. When even Paris Hilton releases a statement saying she hopes the media will pay less attention to her jail tragedies and more attention to things like Iraq, we know we’ve got a problem.

Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel mention in their book that the huge boom of online blogs, quasi- or pseudo-journalism, Internet public forms, and the like has occurred, in part, as a response to this dissolution of the media’s relationship with us lowly viewers. The Internet age is still young, still with plenty of kinks, and there’s a whole lot of shit out here on the web. But I think this we-the-journalists reaction is valid, if for no other reason than that people are at least trying to think of something, some way to bring public conversation and communication back to the news.

I prefer to stay away from the big news channels, other than to fuel my fire and give me things to rage about and think about and write about. My friend Hayley and I got hooked on MSNBC on September 11, 2001, back when Ashleigh Banfield helped a woman shield her baby when buildings in Manhattan were falling. I’ve since become disillusioned with MSNBC, partly from learning more and partly because I think MSNBC has fallen since then. Ashleigh Banfield is now on Court TV, and I recently saw her talk for SEVERAL minutes all about how many times the f-word was used during a particular trial. My friends and boyfriend and I like to watch FOX News to scream at the pundits, and for the cathartic experience it brings us. Sometimes I check CNN if I want national news, and I prefer it to MSNBC or FOX. My boyfriend and I watch George Stephanopoulos on ABC. We prefer PBS news or DW-TV (Deutsche-Welle TV, a channel based out of Germany that only comes on every once in a while on our cable) to all of the above. We prefer the BBC and The Economist over pretty much everything. And Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert hold a special place in our news-seeking hearts.

But really, what I rely on most for information, for truth, and for news, is my own brain, my questions, and the personal and public debates and conversations that arise from that information, truth, and news.

Regardless of the whims of the public, I feel strongly that there are certain things that are simply not relevant news. I believe the present-day media carry a lot of the blame for encouraging our disturbing cultural obsession with celebrities and socialites and foul sensationalism. But it’s also our fault. If so many Americans didn’t care about such ridiculous stuff, and rejected it when media tried to make us care, our culture wouldn’t be in the grave state that it’s in now. Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out how to fix it. But maybe someone else has. Or maybe I could, or someone else could. If lines of communication are kept open, or re-opened, maybe we could figure it out. That is why maintaining the relationship between information, truth, news and media and their citizens is so, so important.

How to write about Africa, by Binyavanga Wainaina

This is hilarious, true, and wonderful:

http://www.granta.com/Magazine/92/How-to-Write-About-Africa/1