Holy crap does Orson Scot Card nails it:
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I look at the appeasers among us — the Democratic Party, Hollywood, the academic-literary establishment, the media — and I despair for America and for the world. Everything these people claim to stand for, Iran and Al-Qaeda are eager to destroy. If we do not stop them, then the Democratic Party, Hollywood, American academia, and the media will all be destroyed or neutralized.
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It is a lengthy article, but well worth reading!
My son is 15.
He’s trying out for soccer in high school again this year.
We were quite surprised that he wasn’t chosen to be on varsity last year. He’s very good – fast and an excellent passer.
While putzing around this weekend with him – and going over strategies on how to have a good camp – he mentioned that half the guys who made the team last year are in the country illegally.
So my son may not get to play high school soccer because of illegal immigrants.
I don’t think the adage: “Playing high school sports American kids won’t play” is accurate.
I’m getting fed up with this situation. It is un-American.
I sent these thoughts in an e-mail, but I figured I’d post them here in the hopes of getting more feedback:
Isn’t a person who illegally enters the country and commits a violent act a terrorist?
Isn’t that the definition of a terrorist act – to perform violence upon a country’s infrastructure or people? Especially by agents of another country? Isn’t the government of Mexico encouraging their citizens to come to the US illegally?
Which – of course – begs the question of why these _terrorists_ are not being identified as such, pursued, and prosecuted as such?
(I know the last question is rhetorical – ’cause this administration has become inept….)
This is a great rant!
I do so hate the nanny-state people.
Well, this is quite an eye-opener. Her point is that it doesn’t matter what a person being interviewed says because the journalist is “telling a story”. For example, when being interviewed by a recruiter, she leaves out previous jobs and uses this logic:
“… the fact that I left off the details most important to the recruiter makes the recruiter feel like it’s lying. But it’s not. I’m telling my version of the story.”
That’s the epitome of Journalistic Integrity, there. /sarcasm
Some of the comments below the post indicate that this is the attitude which is causing so much damage to the news industry.
And if you stretch a little, I think one can see a parallel for many other industries. There is a strong interest in blogs and alternate information sources because the primary (historically) source has failed. People know this. So they began creating their own sources – themselves. Software makers responded to a demand for self-publishing by creating blog software. I don’t think the rise of blogs coincides with the fall of news-providers as much as the news-providers have been falling for a while and blogs are filling the need.
Furthermore, if the news-providers hadn’t failed, there may have still been online commentary – but I think it would have been more like MySpace and FaceBook – social and casual. The serious blogs – Pajamas, Huffington, Kos, Instapundit – they exist because people want that information and trust those sources rather than the “traditional” ones.
I think a fair example is the US Auto Industry. The US Auto Industry hasn’t “failed” (yet) because the Asian Auto Industry came and “took” the US Auto Industry’s customers. Car buyers chose other products because they were unhappy with the choices (and customer service) they had. Because the auto industry requires trillions of dollars in investment, there was no grassroots development of alternate auto sources. But there were financial backers who did see a demand for an alternate product, so they invested in the Asian Auto Industry and expanded their product. Given a choice, consumers will spend where they get the most value for their investment – just like anywhere else. One cannot fault a car buyer for getting the most car for their money. Similarly, one should not fault an information-seeker for reading / viewing from the best source of information they can afford.
In the case of this woman, if what she is writing is truly representative of the current journalist industry, then they are in for more difficult times.
In fact, knowing that history repeats itself and human behavior is predictable, I’d bet we will see the same pattern in the journalist industry as we saw in the auto industry. Thirty-plus years ago, Detroit got a wake-up call and they hit snooze. Now most of Detroit is on it’s death-bed. For the Journalism Industry, blogs were the wake-up call. Talk radio is clearly causing the industry issues now. I see calls for censorship at the government level. In the 1970’s, there were calls by the US Auto Industry to “censor” the Asian Auto Industry. (The US Auto Industry got laws passed favoring domestically manufactured vehicles. This backfired horribly – it blurred the line on “foreign vs domestic” by encouraging the Asian Auto Industry to build factories in the US. This developed a grassroots loyalty from the workers at the plants and the communities that thrived near them.)
Recently, we’ve seen conversations about censoring blogs (limiting political advertisements during elections via the Bi-partisan Campaign Finance Reform Act – aka “McCain-Feingold”), censoring talk-radio (”fairness doctrine”), but not much video (more on this later). This seems eerily familiar to the Auto Industry. And if history is any kind of a good indicator (and it usually is), then we will see a brief resurgence of the traditional journalistic industries. But – again – it is unlikely that they will use the information presented to make the required changes to their business models to return to their former success.
(Another interesting aside: Both industries here (Auto and Journalism) have “investor classes” that are not very diversified. The power his held in a relatively few groups of stockholders (Voting Classes). One of the sharp edges of capitalism – and there are many – is that when a special Voting Class exists, the other shareholders are really just along for the ride. The company goes where the family wants it to go. In this case, if the Voting Class doesn’t want to change directions or doesn’t see the iceberg, then there is little the other shareholders can do (except sell). Most of the Auto Industry stocks are held by small groups of ultra-powerful investors. Similarly with the Journalist Industries – many are even controlled by one person!)
In reference to video, there has been some attempt to limit its use, albeit not by the Journalist Industry directly. Video needs a lot of bandwidth and those providers (many of whom involved in the Journalist Industry) have attempted to limit the amount of video that can be seen via alternate methods. There have been calls for “Net Neutrality”, which would be a government enforced limit on types of bandwidth usage (seem familiar?).
One thing is certain – people want quality product for their investment. In the case of Journalism, the quality product is accurate reporting that clearly separates the facts from opinion, presented in a timely manner. The medium isn’t the content – just as the dealership isn’t the car. If the US Auto Industry had produced good quality vehicles, there would have been very little demand for alternate sources, hence little motivation for the Asian Auto Industry to invest as heavily as they did. Similarly, if the Journalistic Industry had maintained a clear delineation between facts and opinions, there would have been little demand for blogs, talk radio, or (upcoming) video broadcasts.
Where will it go from here? I expect that the Journalism Industry is going to see an “up”, then they will return to “down”, and finally stabilize in “decline”.
“Up” will come in the form of some sort of protection or combined action. This will result in greater attention to journalists and less to blogs. I think this is going on now and will for a bit. It is possible that some of the “fairness doctrine” talk was intended as a trial balloon to determine how the public would react to such an idea. We have seen the Supreme Court reject some limits on advertising. So we are also seeing the “protection” actions failing. As businesses, I think we’ll see some form of combination. Either a larger merger (in addition to Murdoch going after WSJ) is possible or in terms of a single source trying to woo many disparate personalities into their brand. For example, we could see a broadcast company attempt to hire multiple big-name bloggers / vloggers to write for or appear on their channels. I’m not thinking one or two (the previous ones have been “trial balloons” too). They will need to make an impact, so they would probably try hiring six to ten, possibly launching an entire “channel” or a new “site” to collect them all.
Unfortunately for them, these actions will be doomed to failure as well. These will focus on “opinion”. What customers want most is “fact”. Everyone has an opinion, but it has to have a seed of information to form around. In the auto industry, chrome is flashy and attracts attention. But it doesn’t define a quality product, it doesn’t sustain sales, and it doesn’t provide consistent profit. Quality engineering, good manufacturing, and solid customer support are the heart and soul of the auto industry (just like any other industry). Similarly, in the Journalistic Industry, opinions are flashy and attract attention. But opinions – and their holders – do not do much for the bottom line if they aren’t supported by facts. Those facts must be provided by quality journalism. And because the Journalistic Industry is focused on the “chrome” (e.g. opinions), they are not paying attention to the customer’s unhappiness that the car doesn’t work (e.g. inaccurate facts). So their next attempt at “reinventing themselves” will likely fail. The most likely outcome will be to delay their next “difficult restructuring” – which will be their “down”.
“Down” will begin with the dropping of a major network from the cable / satellite broadcasts. The network won’t have the income / backers to pay to be broadcast. There is only so much bandwidth, so it will become expensive to be there. Expect, however, the network to make this switch to form an “Internet Only!” stance that highlights how what they want to do can only be done in this new medium. Except that they will still use journalists and editors who limit the facts they present and “write their own stories”. This will distort the opinions of their other presenters, which will make the entire network a failure. Quite like they are today – just with less viewers.
The final phase will be a permanent “decline”. Because – really – what else is there? Sure, some business mogul will snap up a major broadcaster and attempt to run a “clean ship”, but that is lipstick on a pig. The Journalistic Industry is dominated by people who see “facts” as “fluid”. They have an attitude of “I know what is best for the customer. Yeah – tell that to Henry Ford with his “They can have any color they want as long as it’s black” attitude. The easy availability of facts and opinions will continue to split the readership / viewership until it is mostly niche collating. The “facts” of a story will come from multiple people and will be distilled by the readers as “this element is consistent across all reports, therefore it is a fact”. It will take a long time for a company to establish itself as a reliable source of facts. Then it can build upon such a base to develop itself as a source for “well researched opinions”. But until then, the industry is going to continue on the path it is on. And deservedly so.
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[disclosure: I work in the US Auto Industry. In fact, I'm a third generation US Auto Industry employee and damned proud of it. But facts are facts. I'd rather this industry adapt and improve than protect and decline.]
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{obligatory cursing for Harvey: Fuckity fuck, Fuck. FUCK!}
I like this idea.
If you ignore the stuff about Linux and whatnot, the idea is that every line of every bill and law would have to have a “tag” attached that lists who inserted that line.
In addition, the stuff that was added, but later removed, would be preserved so that it would be possible to track who made changes to the (eventual) law that made it what it became when the voting happened.
Fascinating idea.
During OgFest, I was feeling a bit too comfortable in my surroundings and I corrected The Great Og in his speaking.
The look on his face as I ranted about his indiscretion told me that I had hurt his feelings.
When I later apologized, he stated that he was not insulted, as I was not bleeding, hence no apology was necessary.
That is a very kind thing to say, and I appreciate it.
His indiscretion? He ended a sentence with a preposition.
Well, I’ve found an authority on the subject, Winston Churchill, and his comment on the matter:
“Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.”
Apparently, I’m not the only one who corrects people on the matter. Even great people.
SK2 has been added.
Thanks Grau!
Oh, this is such a good article.
Read it.
Print it.
Share it.
heh
Well, that was fun.
I’m glad I went.
“Hi!” to everyone I met.
Some folks needed to drink more, some less. 
I was impressed with the guys who didn’t bother with the glasses and just got their own pitcher of beer – and drank from that.
Thanks much to Tammi for setting it all up.