Thursday, March 27, 2003
Back Off, AARP
Do I even want to know how I got on this mailing list?
I am pleased to enclose your AARP Membership Registration and temporary membership card.
Nowhere in the entire letter does the word “retired” appear. I guess they didn’t want me to feel old.
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
The Santa Barbara Mafia
So Tony Pierce says “amy is my hero.” Now that may seem like it comes out of nowhere, but I know better. About 24 hours ago I was telling Jim Lowney: “Tony Pierce is brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Did you see that line in his photo essay about protesters who were ‘secretly for peace’?” I should have known Tony’d find out I was talking about him. He has spies everywhere. Must have been the Irish bartender telling me basketball coach “Digger” Phelps got his name from his old job at his family’s cemetery.
In truth, Tony is one of many incredibly smart people I worked with at our college newspaper (a.k.a. the Commie Rag) in Santa Barbara. Among the others you can find on the Web are Matt Welch, Ben Sullivan, Doug Arellanes, Chris Scheer, Os Tyler, Steve Czaban, Adam Liebowitz, Don Frances most of Tsar and I think you can probably count Marc Brown, though he was primarily a radio guy. There are more of course, but they're shy. Or rather, they have the decency to not pay good money to run a vanity Web site.
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
Man on the Street - 42nd Street
Jim Lowney and I spent an hour down on 42nd Street this afternoon asking people questions about the war. Check out their answers – and Jim’s great photos – here. There’s a mix of New Yorkers and tourists, and even a guy from the National Guard who wasn’t a huge fan of the anti-war protesters. The weird pictures with Bush and Saddam were taken in the lobby of Madam Tussaud’s.
Big Media and Reporter Blogs
Jeff Jarvis (of Buzzmachine.com, the NJ.com war blog and other interesting things) has a thoughtful entry about journalists who blog and why their editors shouldn’t stop them. Although both CNN and Time Inc. have asked their reporters to stop their war blogs, it’s far more interesting how many new mainstream media blogs are taking off. Jeff makes a strong case for publishers and editors to stop wincing over the typos and to get with the program.
Where to Shop for 'Everything Evil'
VillainSupply.com (“If you are a supervillain, mad scientist, warlord, dictator, or despot, then this is the place for you.”) hails John Ashcroft as its customer of the month for February.
Monday, March 24, 2003
Hype for Asparagirl
The Asparagirl blog by NYC's Brooke Schrier gets a lengthy profile in today's LA Times. It's written by Reed Johnson, a great guy and smart writer I used to work with at the LA Daily News.
The POW Tape
The New York Times has something of a roundup of how media handled the POW tape yesterday. There are probably better stories out there – seeing as how there’s no mention that the mug shots of the five POWs were atop mainstream news sites such as Yahoo! news all day yesterday afternoon and evening. Somewhat important, I think, considering the story is about whether the images were shown in the West. Despite that, here are two interesting quotes from the NYT story.
Matt Drudge, who operates a heavily viewed Web site, posted graphic still images from the tape, blurring the faces of the victims. On the site, he justified his defiance of the Pentagon by saying, "If anchormen and others in the media have viewed it, why can't the average citizen?"
Great question, huh? Especially if you are someone who’s not sure you trust the media much anymore. And especially if you think the media is part of the U.S. propaganda machine now.
Most of the sources quoted in the NYT story agonize over whether the images are too gruesome or how they don’t want to violate the Pentagon’s directive that media not show the footage of the POWs. But then the story ends with ABC shockingly saying it’s not even newsworthy:
David Westin, the ABC News president, said he decided ABC News should not show those pictures. "I don't think there's any news value in it," he said.
Want My Opinion?
So my yoga class Friday night started with a little “om” chanting and then segued into a five-minute anti-war, anti-Bush lecture from the yoga instructor. We got a bit more of her politics throughout, including a very emphatic “ASK GOD FOR PEACE” instruction in the middle of one pose.
I guess it’s hard to blame her for thinking that was an appropriate venue for her war opinions given the rise in TV reporters who now think their opinions should be embedded into their reports.
Politics and Media
So how did George Stephanopoulos get to be the Helen Thomas of the CentCom press corps in Qatar?
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