Comments for Why I don't watch broadcast news, reason #4,657,189.

Why I don't watch broadcast news, reason #4,657,189.

2008-11-27T18:02:02Z

So, there's a significant, nay, hugely significant terrorist event occuring in Mumbai, India. I work in a Sekrit Skwirrel environment, where our access to the outside is controlled, for good reasons. So, I decide to risk it and use Network News to catch up. It just so happens that the last thing we were watching on the TV the night before was on CBS, so it's the CBS Evening News that splats across the screen when the cathode ray tube warms up. We're too cheap to buy a flatscreen 'round here - just makes crappy product sharper, doesn't improve the product. And the talking headress has a Brit who escaped from one of the hotels live on the phone from Mumbai. Woot! [more below the fold]

So, what do we get? "How did that make you feel? "How did you feel about that?" "What were you feeling then?"

Excuse me? Did I stumble into an episode of Dr. Laura? Oh, wait, no, the Talking Headress is a brunette.

You've got a guy who managed to dodge his way out of a burning hotel with gunfire popping all about... and the national news turns it into a therapy session? Good golly gee, I can only hope that one day if I'm ever in that kind of a situation, and a Talking Head/ress gets me on the phone, Live From The Scene Of The Horrible Event, they'll ask me how I felt.

"So, Mr. Donovan, how did you feel as you were fleeing for your life down those stairs through the smoke from the fires, hearing the bullets thudding into the walls and bodies upstairs?"

"Um, excuse me?"

"How did it make you feel?"

"Erm, your serious? You actually get *paid* to ask stupid questions about serious news that affects potentially millions? This is the best you got? How do I feel?"

"Well, of course, it's important! Our viewer [sic] needs to know how you felt!"

"I feel like I just got gang-tackled by stupid is how I feel, you silly git. Good golly gee, the skidmarks on my skivvies are still damp from being sucked up my bung when it snapped shut in terror, and you're wasting oxygen and the network's money paying exhorbitant fees over a satellite phone, not to mention precious minutes of the audience's life that they'll never get back in order to ask questions the answers to which are self-evident?

How many boxtops did you send in to get your journalism degree?

Excuse me, Mr. Producer, is there anyone in the studio who hasn't inhaled so much hairspray that they actually have brain cells that make connections? Could you bring in the makeup artist or the caterer? I'm betting I'll get better questions from those guys and gals than I am from this vacuum tube sitting in the anchor chair.

*click*"

That's why I find broadcast news mostly unbearable. It's rarely news.

/rant

Comment from SangerM on 2008-11-30

2008-11-30T08:54:21Z

Blue Girl: The Zumwalt class destroyer program was cancelled (but not utterly) because of cost overruns and piss-poor management by the Navy of several key functional areas--like being able to articulate a coherant ROC plan for the future that makes sense to anyone (let alone Congress), or being able to get any single big ticket project done on-time, on budget. At least any that I can recall recently.

As for the Navy wanting to avoid 'littoral confrontations' that's just silly. The Navy is no less proud of its past, and is no less interested in doing its part in any conflict than any of the other services, regardless of where and when. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the Navy mostly got over it's littoral avoidance affliction years ago, and now is just trying like everyone else to get more done with less (and old and decaying).

And BTW, we all tend to avoid spelling out the ugly words in plain English so Argghhh doesn't get 'blocked' by the net-nannies being used by the MilDeps, especially the Air Force.

V/R

Comment from Casey on 2008-11-29

2008-11-30T05:46:07Z

They also learned that if they messed with helicopters, they got both. The look on their faces was
priceless. For a couple of seconds, anyway.

Ok. You owe me a can of Icehouse beer, as I ~~was~~ had been drinking one when I read that.

Took me a minute to wipe it all up. :)

More seriously, this (I baby-killer"think) goes back to what's been happening off Somalia, and the scandal-driven commercial media system. If a Western country treats these pirates as they deserve (ie shoot first, shoot often) all the Usual Suspects will push the "militaristic inhuman meme.

Feh. Gimme Stephen Decatur instead.

Comment from Blue Girl on 2008-11-29

2008-11-29T19:40:30Z

A fuckin' Men. Sink the thievin' bastards on sight. My outrage meter pegged for the year when I read that the Zumwalt class destroyer program was cancelled. Looked to me like the navy was trying to avoid littoral confrontations.

Comment from BillT on 2008-11-29

2008-11-29T10:14:10Z

The Viet Cong learned to get really close to US troops ("grab the enemy by the belt"), because small arms fire is less deadly than artillery.

They also learned that if they messed with helicopters, they got both. The look on their faces was priceless. For a couple of seconds, anyway.

Phu Quoc Island off the western coast of Vietnam is also known by its French name on a lot of maps --Île des Pirates. Pirate Island. About once every month, we'd hear an "SOS - pirates" from a freighter transiting the strait between the Delta and Phu Quoc -- and we'd usually get permission to fly out and investigate. ROE allowed us to sink the pirates if they were actively engaged in an attack, because they fell under the same ROE as the VC, NVA, and other baddies roaming loose.

After May, 1970, the ROE were amended and we were allowed to sink pirates on sight, because it's pretty easy to tell the difference between an oceangoing fishing sampan and a pirate craft.

By the end of June, 1970, we weren't getting any more "SOS - pirates" calls, and it wasn't due to any decrease in ship traffic, either...

Comment from Casey on 2008-11-28

2008-11-29T04:41:38Z

To me, the fall of American reporting began when the major networks decided their news divisions should become revenue-generating entities. My understanding is that -until the late 70s/early 80s- news organizations were not expected to generate profits. They were, in effect, loss-leaders for the networks.

Once the profit imperative entered the picture, we saw the fall of the Murrow-ian objective reporter. His place was taken by the "if it bleeds, it leads," "how do you feel about that?" "journalists" we have today. The fact that most "journalists" were (and are) liberal was (for them) a pleasant side benefit, since the change occured during the Reagan administration. They allowed themselves to pursue the sensational whore, instead of the virtuous fact, and if they got it wrong, well, it's just Ronnie Ray-Gun and his crazy reactionary cabinet, right?

John, it was my impression that was an old GB Shaw quote, not Winnie. Works either way, though.

Grimmy, "jihadiscum" sounds like something to which you apply medicinal cream. Jihadiscum maskirova sounds like one of those kewl dog-latin names the Road Runner cartoons came up with, although I thought it was "maskirovka" myself. Could be my memory.

Argent, I don't even pay attention to the MSM. Literally. I don't watch TV, listen to radio news, or even follow the local paper. That last is probably a bad idea, for local issues. I get better news here, or Strategypage, B5, Lex, or Austin Bay, to name a few.

It occurs to me that jihadiscum maskirova could also serve as the name for a terrorist-enhancing spell for evil mages in the Harry Potter universe. Alas, my mind does work that way. :)

Comment from Argent on 2008-11-28

2008-11-28T23:46:13Z

Thanks for that Casey. I thought I'd mangled the memory a bit.

Used to be able to compare news and find obvious problems where the W's didn't match in the various sources. It's obvious if they don't know, they make it up. Nowadays they are more professional. They keep thier lies more consistent.

I have not looked too much at the Mumbai news. Not that it isn't important, quite definitely it is. But I don't have much interest in the day to day of it and the meat of the issue is too thinly reported or possibly even known to authories. I also don't feel like wallowing in the worry, relief and despair of hostage situations.

This is another part on the war on Terrorism. It's almost the forgotten war hidden under the grand title of Iraq and Afghanistan. It saddens me that the war on Terrorism hasn't been persued vigorously enough outside the favourite places of Iraq and Afghanistan. It angers me they have another significant success. I doubt India will react with fear though and that is hopeful.

Comment from Grimmy on 2008-11-28

2008-11-28T19:56:04Z

Casey:

Exactly my point. And, exactly how stunningly idiotic, moronic, dumbass, intellectually inbred, stupid and senseless was the attempts by journos, at least yesterday when I was watching them fall all over themselves, to nit pick and discount or credit various elements of our common enemy. All based on the assumption that what was done by our enemy yesterday is the full, complete and only capability that enemy would have today.

Of course, I may be over stating just a little bit. I do so hate general issue journalists almost as much as the jihadiscum they love to maskirova and make excuses for.

Comment from John of Argghhh! on 2008-11-28

2008-11-28T19:13:34Z

Casey - Let's face it, high emotion -like blood and scandal- sells papers.

Yep. And the tabs revel in it and take it to caricature. You know what you're getting there...

But the "respectable" media pretend otherwise. Heh. The difference between "call girl" and "hooker." The respectable media are call girls.

As a probably apocryphal Winnie observed, "We've determined what you are, madam. We merely negotiating on price."

Comment from Casey on 2008-11-28

2008-11-28T18:23:49Z

It's also, imo, very "entertaining" to watch so many specialists and opinion manufacturers out themselves as completely clueless in even the most basic concepts of an enemy with a proven penchant for evolving tactics to exploit discovered weaknesses in their targeted area.

Um, Grimmy, doesn't that also describe just about every opponent known to history? You start beating on someone, if they can't fight back directly, they'll use guile.

American Indians played "where's the waterhole" with Army cavalry.

The Brits learned how to fox the Germans on what was bombed and how badly in 1940. Later the Jerries courteously returned the favor, confusing BDA for the Combined Bombing Offensive.
The Viet Cong learned to get really close to US troops ("grab the enemy by the belt"), because small arms fire is less deadly than artillery. This trick was even reproduced in The Return of the Jedi, when Calrissian told the rebel ships to get as close to the Imperial cruisers as possible.

Egypt managed to outfox Israel quite nicely in the 1973 war, and it turned out our Air Force wasn't quite as dominant as it first seemed during the Gulf War. The Iraqis figured out putting a smoking hole near a dug-in tank took it off the "to do" list.

It would be both easy and entertaining to continue on this line for a while, if you love history.

BTW, Argent? It was the first Die Hard, and it was Bonnie Bedelia who slugged the jerk, which made it even funnier.
Let's face it, high emotion -like blood and scandal- sells papers.

Comment from Grimmy on 2008-11-28

2008-11-28T17:54:44Z

It's also been rather interesting to watch them (both the journos and the yammering "specialists" they bring on to fill air time) play the Guess Who Done It? game.

Can't be group x because group x only does y sorts of attacks.
Cant be group z because there was no use of material b and they always and only do attacks with material b.
Can't be ... and on and on and on.

It's not like there's a huge, public, easily accessible record of ALL the groups within the jihadiscum umbrella sharing how-tos and what-withs since this thing officially kicked off several years ago. It's also, imo, very "entertaining" to watch so many specialists and opinion manufacturers out themselves as completely clueless in even the most basic concepts of an enemy with a proven penchant for evolving tactics to exploit discovered weaknesses in their targeted area.

I haven't watched the news since yesterday afternoon. But if it's changed and they've actually caught a cup of clue in the raging clue storm, I'd guess it is only by accident. Or, maybe, shoddy vetting of talking guests that actually let someone competent through the screen.

Comment from BillT on 2008-11-28

2008-11-28T16:27:43Z

...they said *innocent* lives and were referring to Americans,

Not necessarily. They could just have been referring to, generically, "hotel guests."

The members of the Fourth Estate consider themselves "innocents" (whereas we just consider them naifs) who patronize those hotels, so, by extension, all patrons of those hotels are innocents.

Comment from Boquisucio on 2008-11-28

2008-11-28T16:21:04Z

Geeesh - When will you all Red Meat Staters get it? It's no longer about the Five W's of Journalism (who, what, where, when and why). That's SOOOOOO Second Millenium; a millenium ruled by oppresive white male dominated imperialism. Such hubris for rational/materialistic thought are maniqueisms better left for the Anglo-Saxon centered world of old.

Get on with the program people. Toss your Rational Thoughts and penchant for Logic (and your back-bone while you're at it), and ebrace the the values of the new era - An era where Tuggy-Feeeeelings, and Emotions rule.

Obama-Obama-Yes we can *Burp* 'Scuse me. Must be the Turkey Polyphenols talking.

Comment from John of Argghhh! on 2008-11-28

2008-11-28T14:11:48Z

You all missed a key point that Spanky reported - they said *innocent* lives and were referring to Americans, who usually deserve what we get... Must be the fact that the Office of the Presdient Elect has been filled to their liking, we can now all be innocent again...

Which may be a harsh judgement of any specific individual, but is only satire when applied to EuroJournos with a broad brush.

Comment from BillT on 2008-11-28

2008-11-28T08:13:07Z

Did this fall off a turnip truck are is he that stupid

Yes and yes.

BBC gets all it's personnel from the turnip truck, but the smart ones go to the accounting department...

Comment from DL Sly on 2008-11-28

2008-11-28T08:01:09Z

"Did this [guy] fall off a turnip truck are is he that stupid "

*waving hand wildly in the air*
Oo
Oo Oo
Pick me! Pick me! I know.

Comment from Spanky on 2008-11-27

2008-11-28T03:08:59Z

CNN did not report the fact that they were looking for Americans and British nationals for a full two hours after Fox news had it up, I guess they were checking their sources like they did for Sarah Palin. Then one of the BBC reporters said, and I quote " Why would anyone take innocent lives" Did this fall off a turnip truck are is he that stupid

Comment from Argent on 2008-11-27

2008-11-28T02:23:29Z

As I've said so often before news sells emotion. They are interested in feelings and emotional outbursts. Things like truth, justice or often even interest get pushed aside. Every news article has an emotional angle.

And people buy the emotion, oh yes.

I rather liked what was it Willis punching the reporter after asking such stupid questions in that movie die hard or maybe it was number 2.

The most unfortaunte part isn't the fact it's laced with emotional hooks but rather the actual information is rather shallow.

Comment from Jay on 2008-11-27

2008-11-27T21:08:47Z

I've been tracking the Mumbai crisis via twitter. Much more informative.

Comment from bad cat robot on 2008-11-27

2008-11-27T18:34:54Z

The Seattle Times thinks it is vitally important to find out if any of their readers know someone affected by the Mumbai attacks. There's a link you can click to contact them and Tell All. I can't decide if this is sheer laziness or just being emotional carrion-eaters. They did this for 9-11 too. (I *did* know someone who didn't make it out of the North Tower, and I remember the wave of fury that swept over me seeing that plea for free copy. Damn vultures.)