HSU IT Department

Obviously the script has some major issues:

Twenty biggest world history plot holes

I like this one particularly: "13. A plague wipes out vast quantities of Europeans, and then shows up randomly later? Obvious sequel bait." XD

By happenstance I had to be in DC this week for meetings etc. I arrived at my hotel (a lovely historic one near Dupont Circle) on Sunday evening shortly after 10pm, just in time to turn on the television and be confronted by FOX and Geraldo Rivera's dulcet tones as he said, "...and we don't know what the President will say, but we know it's not a nuclear strike because..."

I nearly fell out of my chair. Way to start rumors, Mr. 70's Mustache Man.

So then I got to sit there for half an hour ALL BY MYSELF, racking my brains to figure out WTF might be going on. Comic relief came in the form of Wolf Blitzer being handed a sheet of paper and saying, "I've been told I can read this, so reading from what has just been handed me, the President will be announcing that -- uh, wait...I can't read it? I can't read it. Can I say it involves something overseas? No, apparently I can't say that either. I'm sorry, we're holding off on reading this until we get confirmation..."

Imagine that: responsible journalism and a refusal to spread unsubstantiated rumors. (Unlike Geraldo, obviously just spouting whatever exciting phrases pop into his head...)

Oddly enough, it never once occurred to me it would be about bin Laden. He'd pretty much fallen off my radar for quite a while, and after all that's happened in the Middle East over the last few weeks, he seems more irrelevant than ever. While I'm certainly not unhappy he's no longer out there plotting, I have to say that it was a bit disconcerting to see people dancing for joy over his death. I sympathize, I understand, I by no means condemn; still, I can't help but feel that sober relief and quiet gratification would be preferable to gleeful leaping about in celebration. A mob celebrating someone's being killed is no prettier a sight here than it is in Afghanistan or Iraq. Where is the line between justice and vengeance? I don't know. All I can think of is the 3,000 dead on 9/11 and how this won't bring them back. It seems a curiously hollow victory, after all these years.

Not sure how I feel about the not releasing of photos. The moral high road, I suppose; classy, but very very risky. Then again, people who don't believe it was ObL probably wouldn't believe photographs either, so maybe it doesn't matter that much.

Recently read the (very dry and mostly boring) Gatekeeping Theory, which is the theory behind why certain happenings successfully make it through the obstacle course of tipsters, editors, journalists, corporate wariness, etc -- i.e. gates -- to become a News Item, and some don't (more here, for you intellectual masochists in the audience). I'm intrigued by media today: why news is the way it is, why some things get so much airplay (OctoMom, anyone?) and some get almost none (the manufacturer chosen for the H1N1 flu vaccine sent a toxic batch to Czechoslovakia last year, for example), why there seems to be so little actual journalism going on vs sensationalism and hyperbole and controversy-fostering.

This book did somewhat enlighten me, although because it's mostly a compilation of findings from various studies so it presents a collection of (sometimes conflicting) conclusions. The first section talked about the obvious influences such as corporate philosophy and personal bias. I was most interested in Chapter 6 where they explored the "social institutions" that play into it (markets, audiences, advertisers, financial markets, sources, public relations, government, interest groups, other media, news consultants).

However, Chapter 6 gave two conclusions which by themselves seem like "so what?" but combined are, or should be, alarming. 1) The market (which is comprised of both the viewing/reading audience and advertisers) dictates media content and coverage and 2) Journalists have a vague or nonexistent idea of what their viewing/reading audience actually wants ("news selection has 'no direct relationship to the wants of readers' "). Do you see what this means? Since they don't know what the viewing audience wants, the only market they have left is advertisers, which provide a clearly quantifiable measure of their satisfaction in terms of ad dollars. So rather than news outlets working to provide the accurate, thoughtful information needed for a democratic society to operate effectively, they choose whatever brings in the most cash. In other words, advertisers to a huge extent control what you see -- not just the ads but the main program content -- and therefore what you think. The actual viewing audience is, in essence, powerless. I kind of knew this, but I hadn't seen it stated so clearly before.

It follows that since ad dollars are important, risk-taking is discouraged and media outlets tend to rely on stuff that worked before -- hence the proliferation of reality television even though the viewing audience is utterly sick of it -- and on sensationalism. To me, this also suggests that audiences attracted by sensational stories are also more susceptible to advertising; they don't say this but it's implied by the fact that sensational stories, like the OctoMom thing, also attract lots of advertising dollars.

The other disturbing point was the lack of competition in the media and how unhealthy that is. The "five dominant media firms operate more like a cartel...[and] maintain their cartel-like relationships with only marginal differences among them, a relationship that leaves all of them alive and well, but leaves the majority of Americans with artificially narrow choices in their media."

So all in all it was interesting but also hugely depressing. Dad says it all goes to back to the change of news departments from cost centers to profit centers -- that is, when networks decided that the news, rather than being a public service, needed to turn a profit. I suppose we have that decision to thank for both Keith Olbermann and Glen Beck. Bleah.