Tag: press

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Quentin Tarantino bad mouthing Paul Dano bothered me for some reason. Tarantino has every right to criticize someone’s work. It is part of the risk artist takes. Critical feedback is a gauge of how effective the artist is so I am not opposed to criticism per se. Tarantino’s criticism, however, was unnecessarily mean spirited. He sounded like he wanted to hurt Dano more than let a colleague know how to improve his work.

More worrisome is this has become the environment we live in. I disagree with you has become more than a difference in opinion or taste. If I didn’t like your performance, you didn’t get it wrong, you are a bad actor. Or a stupid person. Or an evil person. The press eggs this on because it loves a disagreement and have a gleeful willingness to spread the absolute worst thoughts that people have to their readers and viewers. So if a famous person burns another famous person, you can bet your house that there will be a reporter sticking a microphone into the burn victim’s face asking for his response. Retaliation is inevitable.

I wish I was above it all but, I have to confess, I am right in there slinging mud with the best of them. I try to be conscious about it but I fail. Almost all of the time, I fail. A simple a thing as a Trump supporter with a misspelled protest sign is enough for me to forward to Facebook and Instagram so everyone can see how Trump supporter’s are so dumb. I am laughing at one person’s mistake and implying that all Trump supporters are the same which means they all potentially are bad spellers. Uneducated and stupid, right?

The problem is that in a few minutes, I will receive a post from a someone showing a misspelled sign from a left winger. Am I supposed to make the same sweeping assumption about all left wingers based on the one left winger who can’t spell? Of course not. It is just one person’s mistake. The question, for me, then what was I hoping people would think when I sent the post about the bad spelling Trump supporters? It was unfair of me to provide this false depiction of Trump supporters.

Making fun of people is all a lot of fun when you are speaking with people who agree with you but, in the social media world we live in, we no longer have this luxury. Everyone, including the people we are making fun of, can read your thoughts and know what you really think of them. People rarely change their minds if you are calling them stupid. Yet we keep calling each other stupid. Quite loudly at that. How then can we expect people to listen?

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The Huffington Post headline reads: Kim Carnes Seemingly Shades JoJo Siwa over her “Bette Davis Eyes” cover. Oh my, how horrible. Now everyone is talking about it.

Seemingly is the most important word in this headline. Huffington Post hedged its bets — they can’t positively say for sure that Carnes was shading JoJo Siwa. On the other hand, there is enough ambiguity here for them to speculate. What’s the harm in a little speculation, right?

Kim Carnes and JoJo Siwa were getting along fine or, more likely, completely unaware of the other person’s existence. Then some reporter comes along and speculates. It is a slow news days. Why not stir the pot a little and see what pseudo controversy can be created that will grab readers attention. This will go on for a few days. With both parties being asked what they think of the other’s increasingly vitriolic statements until the reporter tires of the feud and creates a new one.

This formula for creating pseudo controversies is the bread and butter of the new business these days — particularly when celebrities are involved. And everyone seems to be on board with this. Celebrities love headlines. Newspapers love reporting gossip. It is what you call a win/win relationship.

It is also a terrible diet for people needing information. Feeding people bon bon after bon bon without a vegetable or a piece of fruit in sight. Now, I get that controversies sell newspapers but there needs to be something more substantive on the menu so while I can enjoy my bon bon, I need to eat my broccoli as well.

This terrible strategy has spilled over to political reporting which now boils down to people reacting to whatever nonsense comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth. It is all about one upping the other person and the press is there breathlessly reporting responses to each new outrageous comment. What does this mean? How will they respond? Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah.

But it is hardly substantive reporting about what ails the country.

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Brett Favre announced today that he has Parkinson’s Disease. The Daily Beast called the diagnosis shocking which seems a bit of a stretch to me. Since Favre played football for over 20 years and has had as least 4 diagnosed cases of concussion while also claiming to have had close to 1,000 concussions in his career, shocking would be if doctors failed to find any brain injuries. But finding Parkinson’s Disease is sad and tragic but far from shocking for a man with his history.

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The other day I was getting worked up over Oklahoma requiring Bibles in every classroom. Then, I began to think why. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is a bad idea and we should try to stop it. On the other hand, as bad ideas go, it is far down the list on what is important. Some religious people think that the mere presence of the Bible in the classroom will somehow magically change the children forced to sit in a room with it into Christians.

I am betting this won’t happen. If I seriously thought that these proponents of the Bible in the classroom could create an effective educational program that incorporated the Bible I might be worried. They really have no ideas beyond prayer and patriotism and if they tried to do anything more they would begin to fight among themselves. Christians, if you recall, have violently argued with one another for centuries about Christian Doctrine. Indeed, this was the main reason why the Founding Fathers wanted a religious neutral government — Christian sects have a tendency to rumble if it is possible to get an upper hand with another Christian sect.

So why is this meaningless gesture getting me so worked up? Because it is headline news. The press is only interested in controversy. Controversy brings in readers which brings in ad revenue and so the press will search for controversial issues to feed to the American public. They aren’t feeding the public anything that is particularly nutritious either. It is more like a table filled with desserts that we can’t help but pile onto our plates and finish them off in one sitting. Until we make ourselves sick.

It is an easy enough bon bon to make too. Anything to do with religion in public schools was sure to piss of every secular humanist in the country while getting the full fledge support of fundamental Christians. Some editor somewhere decided to fed this particular controversy to the American public because they knew their readers would lap it up and then raise their fists ready for battle. Sadly, they were correct.

What is so annoying is that I know this is the game. Sensationalism is the only consistent menu item and I keep falling for it. There is a good chance that the Bibles in every classroom will never happen or it will be slowed down in the courts for years to come and, after a few years of squabbling over this, and realizing that it is way too difficult to make it happen, the combatants will move on to something new to argue about.

More worrisome, is it illustrates the Media’s focus on divisive topics. Anyone looking at education would think that the most important topic in American education is the treatment of Trans children because a lot of people are talking about it. In reality, there are 73,000,000 people in the USA under the age of 18.. Of those 73,000,000, 42,000 of them have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and only 4,200 of these children have started hormone therapy. This means that when people are talking about this, they are talking about .00005 % of the student population.

The treatment of Trans children in public schools and religion in the public schools need to be addressed but that it dominates any discussion regarding education in the 2024 campaign is out of all proportion to how it affects the vast majority of public school students. It is there only to instill rage and division which is all really great fun for the Press but does very little to improve public schools.

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“I don’t care what they call me as long as they mention my name.”

George M. Cohan

“There is no such thing as bad publicity. “

P.T. Barnum

Missouri state Senator Bill Eigel worries that the vague writing of an Abortion Bill would allow one year olds to get abortions. Why he is worried is a bit of a mystery. One year olds are incapable of pregnancy, so their need for abortions isn’t really an issue here. It won’t happen so it is nothing to be worried about. But, anyway, when has that stopped politicians from making an issue out of nothing.

Just for the sake of argument, let’s assume there is a one year old girl needing an abortion. She is unable to give her consent in the first place, so she was raped. the very people who would be protected by passage of the bill — victims of incest and rape. Furthermore, and the most important point to consider here, it is impossible for a one year old girl to carry a full term pregnancy to birth. She would need an abortion to save her life. So, if anyone should get an abortion, a pregnant one year old absolutely should.

If it were biologically possible which it isn’t.

On the other hand, Eigel generated a lot of pro-Life points fighting the scourge of one year olds seeking abortions. He also was able to get it without really having to take a stand on anything important. There won’t be any stories about one year olds dying from botched abortions or doctors debating whether to give a one year old an abortion because it will never happen. This, however important it is to you and me, is irrelevant to Eigel and his supporters. Eigel still gets pro-Life points for opposing abortion and, particularly important, defending babies from abortion clinics who would think nothing of aborting non-existent fetuses from one year olds.

The press dutifully reported Eigel’s concerns. The press will report any outrageous statement from any elected official because it might tempt shocked readers into reading their paper. Who wants to read about actual mature women needing an abortion when they can debate endlessly about one year old who will never need one. The only thing that happened here was Eigel got his name in the paper an his reputation enhanced with his voters.

You will all be relieved to know, pro-Choice or pro-Life, that one year olds will not have access to legal abortion. Absolutely nothing was learned from this nor was any debate furthered in discussing it. Why this was a newsworthy event is still a mystery but I am certain that the press would only use their limited space to report on truly important issues. Right?