Tag: Journalism

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Tropical storm Rachel blew through southern California with nary a problem for the folks who live here. Much to the disappointment of every weatherperson in the region who were ginning this up to be a potential disaster of catastrophic proportions. Of course, nobody really believed them and everyone pretty much carried on like they would on any other day.

This is a problem that I would think people involved with journalism might consider more seriously. And weather reports are the perfect place to start because they aren’t political. It’s weather. If there is anything we, as a nation, might agree upon it is the weather. We don’t like bad weather because it makes our lives more difficult and we like good weather because it makes our lives easier. Sure, there a few curmudgeons who might disagree but, by and large, I think weather is one of the few topics in which most people can find agreement.

Back to tropical storm Rachel.What occurred? A pretty mild rainstorm which I had to go out into twice and managed quite nicely. Most everyone I know had the same experience. The ground is barely wet 24 hours afterwards.

Now, you might think why am I making such a big deal about this? Isn’t this good news? Because I, and about everyone else in the region, basically ignored all the warnings and did whatever it is we wanted to do which is fine. Until it isn’t.

And sometimes it isn’t. I was visiting my family back in Kansas City one Christmas and the weather report was telling people a blizzard was coming. I asked my sister, who lives there, for her advice and she said something to the effect that they are always saying there is a blizzard and it never happens, so I went out in it. It was an actual blizzard and I dangerously traversed miles across the city in order to reach my destination. I was so shaken when I arrived, I had to have two martinis to calm my nerves. Two martinis.

Now you might say it was my own damn fault for listening to my sister. There is a certain truth to that and I will consider that now every time I seek weather report information from her. But, and this is important, she had numerous experiences that proved her right. If they call a blizzard and it never happens, you get kind of used to it not being a blizzard and ignoring the warnings. And, if you are right 9 out 10 times, why wouldn’t you?

So when the media is screaming about the dangers of AI, I shrug my shoulders and carry on like nothing is going to happen. I might be wrong but I have lived through similar scares. Anybody remember Y2K? The world was supposed to end on January 1, 2000 because the computer systems of the world weren’t programmed for years after 1999. Planes were supposed to come crashing down, bank accounts were going to be inaccessible, the world was going to end.

It didn’t. It wasn’t even memorable. It came and went without even a whimper. So, pardon my sangfroid, but I am finding it difficult to get worked up about AI taking over the world. Not because it isn’t important but because experts are wrong about what is going to happen. They are wrong a lot in fact.

But this doesn’t matter to the media who love nothing more than a potential crisis to whip up headlines and panic and more headlines because people are now panicked because the media told them to be panicked. Now the media could couch these discussions in a reasonable debate between people but who would watch a reasonable debate. They want yelling, they want over talking, they want chairs flying onto the debaters, they want to provide their viewers with good television and not necessarily accurate information with which to make reasonable decisions.

In other words, nobody much believes the media any longer because the media’s main job is to attract viewers and not to inform their audience with dry facts and reasoned arguments. This is a big problem.

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Christiane Amanpour says she prepares for a trip to the United States now like she is preparing for a trip to North Korea.

I believe that her preparations may be different with Trump and his cronies in charge but North Korea — a country so backward that there are no lights on at night and where there is no political opposition whatsoever seems a bit of a stretch. More importantly it obviously isn’t the least bit true. The lights are very much on in the USA and the opposition to Trump is both active and vigorous. The mere fact that she is saying this while in the United States undermines her own statement.

She has a point. Unfortunately it got lost in the hyperbolic nature of her statement. This is especially damaging for someone who is a journalist. Maybe a comedian could get away with the North Korean comparison but someone who conveys important information to the public it calls into question their judgment. And, to be clear, she wasn’t joking so can I trust what this journalist is saying?

Now I think I can because of her long record of accurate reporting but what about red America? People who are already deeply suspicious of journalists. They might think if she believes that traveling to the USA is akin to North Korea, she is clearly someone who has lost her senses or, at least, her ability to reason.

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I can’t tell you how disappointed I was to see only 7 stories about the Met Gala on the Huffington Post.

Only seven! For the Met Fucking Gala! You can tell I am riled because I rarely use exclamation points and I have used two in one paragraph.

It is an insult too difficult to bear. I can only hope that the editorial team at the Huffington Post will seriously assess their headline reporting a bit more seriously and make better decisions.

Poor Anna Wintour! She must be gutted. My heart bleeds for her!