One problem with the media is that they have too much …well… access to the media. So when something gets them all in a tizzy of collected emotions – grief, indignation, cockiness – instead of putting in a the company newsletter like the rest of the world does it, they put it ON MY TELEVISION SET!
When Daniel Pearl, journalist for the Wall Street Jounal, was kidnapped and murdered that was news. Fine. No problem with that. But Jesus, on and on with the tributes and stories about how he was a great guy and a boffo reporter. I had to clear the jizz off my newspaper and TV screen every day for about two weeks.
You know what? Lots of great people who do good work get killed BUT NONE OF THEM GET HUGE CHUNKS OF AIRTIME AND MILES OF COLUMN INCHES TO TELL THE WORLD ABOUT IT! (I’m not suggesting they should, BTW.)
Now this whole business is repeating itself with Roone Arlidge (sp?). TV pioneer? No doubt about it. Good for one news segment… PERIOD.
But no… CNN is carrying his funeral live! Good God, spare us.
Why can’t they just do like when the old geezer cameraman dies? Two sentences at the end of the broadcast and leave it at that. Much classier.
Well for what it’s worth, a NBC cameraman in NY was just discovered dead in the trunk of his car. He had been shot execution style. I doubt you’ll hear anything else about it.
Some years ago, the editor of the Arkansas Democrat died the same weekend as one of our ex-governors. The guy got more column inches and a bigger obit on that page than the ex-guv did. Now, the Democrat is the biggest deal, newspaper-wise, there is in Arkansas, I suppose, but how much did they expect us to care about him?
I suppose it’s only human. “Good ol’ Tom died; I remember drinking with him at the last convention . . . Well let’s give him a good send-off.”
Not that I’m aware of Jar. He was 28 IIRC, had a previous criminal record, and had a very nice late model Mercedes. The fact that he was shot execution style, and the very nice car wasn’t taken, obvioously raises some questions. Hopefully they’ll figure it out, but since he sounded more like joe 6 pack, perhaps thats the last we’ll hear of it.
That whole Roone Arledge bullshit…all you hear about is how he revolutionized TV news, like that was a good thing…like the way Pol Pot revolutionized population control…
I think Daniel Pearl’s murder did deserve attention…it showed a lot of people just what some terrorists would resort to. As for Roone Arledge, most people outside the TV news business had no idea who he was.
cuate, no one is saying that Pearl – and Arledge too – were not newsworthy. It’s all the follow-up crap that makes it in print and on TV that annoys me.
Say the president of some multinational corporation gets kidnapped and killed by drug lords or terrorists or whoever. That makes the news as it should. But the story is essential over and done in a day or two.
But if you’re a member of the media, well boy-o, the story drags on and on until every correspondent that ever had a beer with you gets to do a segment or a column about how great you were.
Ah, but he said “great people” who do “good work”, not rich tarts who think that they are the next Mother Theresa because they once touched an AIDS victim.
hate the news. hate the fucking news. every night - there’s some idiot on, excitedly telling us about “tragic car crash… survived by…terrible circumstances… condolences…” it seems so ridiculously fake, its insulting.
So - I’m not the only one who watches news and thinks “OK, this is what I need to give a f**k about today…” - thanks for the heads-up, you goddamn talkin’ bobbleheads!