Posts tagged “media criticism”
Citizen journalists are self-serving? So are professional journalists. This keeps "surprising" old media types, but everything that happens in real life happens online too. The conflict of interest Carr is clutching his pearls about has always existed. His byline gives him away.
The Daily Express ran a shameful hit piece on Dunblane survivors, trawling their Facebook profiles for ordinary teenage behavior to portray them as louts, without speaking to any of them. Lazy, disgraceful journalism that exploits trauma victims twice over. The paper owes them an apology.
Fake Steve Jobs eviscerates a CNET columnist for lazy Dell analysis. Hilarious and mostly right, though CNET isn't doomed so much as permanently mediocre. Hard to blame their journalistic standards when they never really had any.
Tonight's ABC debate was a disaster. Nearly every major issue facing America went unaddressed while moderators obsessed over flag pins, bitter-gate, and Obama's former preacher. Nakedly pro-Hillary and substance-free, it was terrible even by the embarrassingly low standard of American political debates.
The BBC seems to be reporting oil price milestones at every round number — though $94 appears to have been quietly skipped.
A masterpiece of unintentional storytelling: Tom dominates the frame, baby Suri is his trophy, and Katie literally cranes her neck just to fit in. One photo captures their entire dynamic perfectly.
I wrote to the Western Mail to protest Lowri Turner's column arguing gay men are unqualified to lead because they can't have children. Her logic is spurious, her stereotypes offensive, and her claim that "different from the norm" disqualifies anyone from office is dangerous nonsense.
For a brief moment during Katrina, American media actually did its job. Now CNN is running feel-good stories about white survivors while thousands of poor black people are dead. New Orleans is 63% black. The media's return to form makes me sick.
Jon Stewart appeared on Crossfire and called the hosts partisan hacks, begging them to stop distorting the news. It backfired somewhat since his own kid-glove Kerry interview undermined his credibility. The whole depressing exchange just confirmed everything wrong with American media.
I've been obsessing over this boyband cover of Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me." It's either brilliantly layered parody -- hairbands inside boybands inside a TV set, Beatles costumes and Hey Mickey references -- or it's just terrible. I've watched it three times and still can't decide. Neither can you, now.
A comic sells out hilariously, and BBC employees anonymously defend their site on a wiki complaint page, creating a bizarre, schizophrenic chorus of justifications and rebuttals.
I suggested a balanced mix of news sources to a friend, from BBC to IndyMedia. Then he sent me a Fox News clip that made me realize they're even more unhinged than I'd thought. That anchor looks genuinely evil. Cheney's brother?
Sick with a cold, so here's a raw link dump: BBC was least impartial on Iraq war coverage, a cool snowflake builder, Peter Jackson confirmed for The Hobbit, Defective Yeti's packing peanut baby quote, and my Smallville fixation that's definitely not about Lex and Clark's tension.
The casual way people reference physical torture as an interrogation tool is unsettling. "There are ways other than physical torture" implies it's the obvious fallback. That framing is deeply troubling.
Thomas Friedman declared the "terrorism bubble" burst because Iraq fell. But hey, the terrorists weren't Iraqi, their money wasn't Iraqi, and bin Laden sure as hell isn't Iraqi. If anything, we just gave the Middle East more reasons to hate us. Friedman is an idiot.
I support removing Saddam but question why we only target certain undemocratic leaders. Some Americans get the real story, others are hopelessly clueless. Also, try Googling "the worst search engine" for a laugh.
Slate reminds us why Rumsfeld has no business lecturing anyone on the Geneva Conventions. Did they really think we'd forgotten about Camp X-Ray?
Marvel's reviving the Rawhide Kid as gay, and everyone from CNN to CBS has weighed in. My take: watered-down camp references aren't representation. If you're going to make a gay character, give him real romantic storylines. It's 2003. A gay character who never kisses a guy isn't groundbreaking.
The Queen shed a tear and Britain lost its mind analyzing why. Maybe something was in her eye. Maybe a corgi died. Lighten up, people. Also, unilateral aggression breeds terrorism. Just saying.
CNN is clearly funding global terrorism to boost ratings. The sniper got caught just as interest waned, conveniently replaced by a Moscow hostage crisis, then a school shooting. For less than a Friends episode, you can bankroll a lot of mayhem. How long until you drop the bomb, CNN?
I found errors in the BBC's Trinidad profile: their map is wrong and they misidentified Tobago's capital. Also, Sun's Java docs calling a DOM a "garden-variety tree" is idiotic. A tree is a tree, not a data structure.
Satirical writers are recycling the same tired "Arafat is gay" joke. Two stories in, the pattern is clear: they've hit a creative wall.
America's moved on from war coverage to kidnapped girls and cratering markets. Meanwhile, I start at IBM Hursley Monday, shirtless and clueless, since my boss hasn't called and my shirts are on the south coast. Crash, markets, crash!
George Harrison's death is sad, but front page news? With a war on? News outlets have forgotten their responsibility: instead of reporting what matters, they manufacture importance, and readers let them. That's dangerous.
