How To Fumble a News Story

I've been watching with interest - and not a little frustration - the recent evictions of Occupy protesters in the States, and how the possibility of federal involvement in the raids has been covered by the media. 

You dig through the debate at your own peril by now, but here's what I've pinned down.

More than a dozen cities moved to evict Occupy protesters from their campgrounds earlier this month, all acting in the space of ten days and using similar tactics. Department of Homeland Security vehicles were spotted at a number of the evictions, including one in Portland.

Later Oakland Mayor Jean Quan revealed to the BBC that she participated in a conference call of 18 cities before the wave of crackdowns began. There was another set of conference calls headed up by the Police Executive Research Forum.

Rick Ellis, a reporter for the (somewhat dodgy) news aggregate site Examiner.com, said an unnamed Justice Department official told him on background that local police agencies had received tactical and planning advice from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.

Review: Steve Jobs

Originally published in The Dominion Post's "Your Weekend", 26 November 2011.

Since the death of Steve Jobs on October 5, the stories surrounding him have taken on a life of their own, linking Jobs with everything from the glories of American capitalism to the rebellious spirit of the Arab Spring. Fortunately, biographer Walter Isaacson has the skill and insight to tell the story of an extraordinary person on a human scale.

Drawn from over 40 exclusive interviews with Jobs over two years, along with interviews with his family, friends, colleagues and competitors, Steve Jobs: A Biography pays tribute to a modern genius while avoiding the notorious “reality distortion field” that surrounded him throughout his life.

Open and reflective during his struggle with cancer, Jobs gave Isaacson his full co-operation and urged people to be honest about his mistakes.

The book starts with his childhood in the San Francisco Bay area and follows his career from beginning to end. At each step – co-founding Apple with Steve Wozniak in his father’s garage, revolutionising personal computers with the Macintosh, creating animated movies at Pixar or tackling the music market with iTunes – Jobs strived to combine cutting-edge technology with art and imagination.

Sex and Infotainment

Today our journalism tutor Jim Tucker started the class with “Well, we’re famous, maybe for all the wrong reasons” – kicking off an argument that lasted all morning.

He’d just been interviewed by RadioLive’s Marcus Lush over a poll he’d posted to Whitireia’s news website, NewsWire, asking readers “Which politician would you like to go to bed with?”

The poll went viral after conservative blogger David Farrar tweeted the link and posted it to his Facebook page, and soon the comments were flooding in.

Journalist and former ACT MP Deborah Coddington was furious. “I find that so bloody offensive. Is this what this country has come to? The people we vote for are nothing more than something to consider mating with?”

By this morning the sex poll story had only gotten bigger (ha ha) with coverage from RadioLive, Newstalk ZB and the New Zealand Herald.

Jim insisted that the poll was meant to show the superficial nature of political reporting, to get NewsWire some attention and to “have a bit of fun”. Half the class thought the whole thing was hilarious and couldn’t see why anyone was complaining.

Michael Moore vs Jon Stewart

This article recently made the rounds through pundit fandom and sparked a few arguments, as I'm sure the author intended it to:

Just as one is likely to hear criticism of [Michael] Moore in liberal circles or carefully qualified appreciation, i.e. “I like him, but I wish he wasn’t so strident,” one will never hear any blasphemy spoken against the idol of modern, urbanite, educated liberal culture, Jon Stewart.

It’s impossible to understand the hatred of Moore from the cocktail party and faculty lounge scene of the liberal establishment without also understanding the same politically impotent group’s love for Jon Stewart. Understanding the juxtaposition of Moore and Stewart reveals the true depths of the failure and soullessness of modern American liberalism.

Personally I think Stewart is much more likeable than Moore, but I found myself nodding my head at the observation that many Daily Show fans don't like embarrassing displays of emotion or undignified tactics - things like LGBT activists glitter-bombing anti-gay politicians.

Outing the Ringers

The usual clever take from Jay Smooth on media coverage of Occupy Wall Street:

The Rise of Maddow

Fresh from winning an Emmy for her coverage of Afghanistan, Rachel Maddow is on the cover of the Hollywood Reporter, promoting her show, her cheap blazers and her upcoming cameo in the new George Clooney movie.

It's like Fangirl Christmas.

A few things, though.

Whenever there's a big feature about Rachel, the writer is almost certain to emphasise how nice and friendly she is. Which is true, I'm sure; and it is good to see a cable news host who is civil with her guests even when she disagrees with them.

But just because she doesn't yell or call people names doesn't mean she won't skewer her guests to the wall when the situation requires it, as Rand Paul can tell you:

Sports vs Science

With all the Rugby World Cup coverage going on at the moment, which I'm more interested in than I thought I'd be, I keep coming back to a point made by physicist Sir Paul Callaghan on Radio New Zealand's "Mediawatch" (at about the 22 minute mark):

You could imagine what would happen if a sports commentator made a mistake about a score, or the track record of a particular player. They'd be deluged with complaints, because they're dealing with an expert audience out there, and sports commentators treat their audience with respect.

And that's why sports commentators are some of the smartest people in the media. They're the ones who have to think on their feet, and they've got to get it right. That's kind of a benchmark. If we could all be as good as sports reporters and commentators, we'd really have a fantastic media.

What he doesn't say explicitly is that we also need an "expert audience" for science - people who are interested in and educated about science issues - which underlines the need for good science education.

Daily Fail

I love this - it reveals so much about tabloid journalism:

The Daily Mail made Twitter headlines for all the wrong reasons this morning, after incorrectly reporting Knox had lost her high-profile appeal and would remain in jail. 

[...] It read: "As Knox realised the enormity of what Judge Hellman was saying, she sank into her chair sobbing uncontrollably while her family and friend hugged each other in tears."

The website even managed to find "sources" to comment on the false verdict.

"Prosecutors were delighted with the verdict and said that 'justice has been done'," the Mail reported, "although they said on a 'human factor it was sad two young people would be spending years in jail'."

I wonder if any of the Daily Mail reporters dreamed of being crime novelists when they grew up.

The Opposite of Tucker

As a rookie journalist, I have role models in the field who inspire and inform me. And then I have reverse role models who I can't stand but still check on from time to time, just to remind myself what not to do.  One such person is Tucker Carlson.

For example:

Earlier this week, [Carlson's website] the Daily Caller reported that the Environmental Protection Agency was "asking taxpayers" to pay for "230,000 new bureaucrats," at a cost of $21 billion, to implement new rules to control greenhouse gas emissions. Given that the agency currently employs 17,000, this seemed like a rather shocking revelation. Naturally, this factoid whipped Fox News and conservative blogs into a frenzy; they pointed to it as evidence that the Obama administration is ape-crazy out of control. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a foe of climate change action, enthusiastically cited it.

But there was a problem: This was not true. [...] The EPA was defending a rule that would allow it to limit the number of pollution sources it must regulate, so the agency wouldn't have to expand its workforce to such an absurd level.

See, perfect media ethics question. "Faced with this dilemma, do you a) print a correction and apology and learn to read government reports more carefully, or b) deny you made a mistake, attack anyone who criticises you and create a viral Internet scandal that drags on for weeks?"

If you're Tucker Carlson, you pick B. If you're a decent journalist, you make fun of Tucker Carlson.

Drunk Ron Paul Fan

I need to not run around showing this to every Libertarian I can get my hands on. That would be rude.



Constitution. Read it. Live by it.

Televising the Revolution

One surprising result of my journalism studies is a shift in perspective when it comes to social media versus the mainstream press.

Today I was involved in a Twitter debate over the protest that's going on in Lower Manhattan. Hundreds of activists have gathered on Wall Street to protest economic disparity and the principle of "profit over and above all else".

The protesters are copying the Arab Spring by using social media like Twitter and YouTube to spread word about what's going on - and to mock or criticise the mainstream media for inadequate coverage. Jeff Sharlet, an author and political journalist who writes for Harper's Magazine and Rolling Stone, engaged with some of these criticisms.
 

 

Just a Comedian?

The Daily Show's Jon Stewart will be in the next issue of Rolling Stone, doing what he does best -- making insightful and yet oddly frustrating jokes about President Obama and 24-hour cable news:

"[The 24-hour networks] are now the absolute most powerful force driving the political narrative," he says. "And the picture that they create is one of conflict, because they're on for 24 hours a day, so they have to create a compelling reason for you to watch them. Otherwise, they're just Muzak – newzak."

He held his Rally To Restore Sanity last fall as an attempt to counteract their message: "The idea of the rally was to say, 'They created this false sense of urgency. It's a funhouse mirror.' That's probably the frustration that people had with the rally: It didn't have aspirations beyond our normal aspiration, which is to point out comedically something we think is fucked." 
 

Journo Book Club

I like reading books written by journalists, mainly because I find stories more interesting when I know a bit about the person telling them. The last few I've read make for a nice cross-section.

I enjoyed The Influencing Machine by NPR's Brooke Gladstone, a comic book (of all things) about the history of the media and how we consume and shape it:

The media machine is a delusion. What we're really dealing with is a mirror: an exalting, degrading, tedious, and transcendent funhouse mirror of America. Actually, media is a plural noun: we're dealing with a whole mess of mirrors. They aren't well calibrated; they're fogged, and cracked. But you're in there, reflected somewhere, and so is everyone else (including people you dislike).

Guess who got her first byline?

It's pretty neat, I gotta say.

Oh, and the movie's awesome. More on that later.

Privacy and social media

At journalism school we're starting to discuss media law and ethics, and one of the trickier aspects is how social media is changing the equation. We keep coming back to the question of whether it's okay to grab photographs from Facebook accounts to use in our stories, and we still haven't really answered it yet.

This gets even more interesting (and unsettling) when you realise just how much you can find out about someone from Twitter, Facebook and Google, as journalist Joanna Geary recently demonstrated:

I’ve gone from one tweet to knowing an entire family’s names, location, address, contact details, what they look like, how they are connected to the military and, potentially, where a part of the US army is coming under fire.

I stop there because I am already completely freaked out by just how far I’ve already got from a few Google searches.

Throw in the fact that Facebook and Google are trying to grab as much influence over the Internet as they can - and insist people use their real names in the process - and you've got the next big conflict over privacy and freedom of speech staring you in the face.

I'll just be over here, locking down my Facebook pictures.

Norway, Journalism and Stephen Colbert

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"The point is, this monster may not be Muslim, but his heinous acts are indisputably Muslish. And we must not let his Islamesque atrocity divert our attention from the terrible people he reminds us of."

I'm really starting to think that Jon Stewart is the better comedian, but when it comes to insight and political commentary Stephen Colbert has gained the upper hand.

Miss Representation

Hallelujah, this film is getting played in New Zealand.



Information about viewings in Wellington is available at the New Zealand International Film Festival website.

I'm working on a news story about women in the media and later a review of the film, so stay tuned.

Compromise

h/t Stuart Carlson

Diane Sawyer: "I Have Nothing"

Actor/comedian Harry Shearer has posted raw footage of Diane Sawyer preparing for a live broadcast from the disaster area in Joplin, Missouri:



"This is a portrait of a fly-in anchor covering a disaster," Shearer says in a statement. "Diane may be Diane, but this is pretty much what you get when you send high-priced anchor talent into a place where everything has fallen apart and nothing works. The quote, 'I have nothing,' of course, should more appropriately be coming from a tornado victim.'"

Is that really what's going on here? The footage shows the entire crew, not just Sawyer, looking disorganised and shaken after losing power in the middle of a storm. What we don't see is how they recover from the problem. Did they continue struggling when the camera went live or did they pull together and get through it?

I'm all for taking self-important celebrities down a notch, but if Diane Sawyer managed to provide solid coverage in a disaster area without a script, then I don't really mind that she gets paid a lot for doing her job.

Science, Technology and Freedom of the Press

I knew there was a reason I haven't completely written off my former career in information technology. From Wired.com:

Scientific advancement never happens in a vacuum.... The broad and effective communication of science is essential for public understanding and support of the research enterprise. ... Any region hoping to be recognized for innovation needs an independent press corps that is able to seek out truth, without interference, while providing a conduit for exchange between science and the rest of society.

More broadly, the article pinpoints my gut feeling that the reporters and scientists I admire share the same intense curiosity about the world: "Good journalism, like good science, thrives on openness and a respect for truth based on evidence."

That, and they tend to be nerds. Let's just be honest.

Social Media: Are You Guys Real?

The possibility of being manipulated via social media has been on my mind a lot lately.

First there was the discovery by The New York Times' Jennifer Preston that one or more people created fake Twitter identities to dig up dirt on Anthony Weiner. I hear from her own (presumably genuine) Twitter account that she's now working on a story on the subculture of "sock puppets", which I can't wait to read.

Then there was the "Gay Girl in Damascus" saga, which gave us not one but two middle-aged American men pretending to be lesbians on the Internet. (Check out the Washington Post for a really good article on what journalists should learn from this.)

Now I'm hearing that some politicians may be using social media to fight dirty against their opponents:

[C]ampaigns across the country are discovering that the anonymous and instantaneous qualities of Twitter can also create headaches when candidates come under attack.

In the San Francisco mayoral race, most of the mock feeds have at most several hundred followers and so far do not appear to be having much influence. But the growing prevalence of the anonymous accounts is raising questions about how to balance free speech and transparency in the fast-evolving world of online political communication.

It's all fascinating stuff, particularly when you throw satire and creativity into the mix (hi there, @MayorEmanuel). But I have to wonder - are there any dirty tricks going on in my little corner of the internet? As a politically active person and an aspiring journalist, do I need to be careful who I talk to? Am I social media-savvy enough to recognise a sock puppet when I see one?

It's something to think about.

P.S. I'm totally who I say I am.

P.P.S. Swear to God.

What The Media Can Learn From Porn

I may need to add this to my To-Read pile: The Erotic Engine: How Pornography has Powered Mass Communication from Gutenberg to Google.

This review on CNBC mentions four of the lessons the mainstream media can learn from the porn industry, including this intriguing detail about media innovator Moses Znaimer, who decided to add porn to his start-up TV channel in Toronto:

For 166 hours a week, his station’s Nielsen ratings were too low to measure. But for two hours each Friday night he captured more than two thirds of the city’s viewing audience – when he aired softcore movies he called “Baby Blues.”

Despite the ratings, stigma-wary sponsors had no interest in advertising during Baby Blue movies. But, viewers who came for the porn, stayed for other CityTV programming. Ratings during the rest of the week began to climb. Although Znaimer earned little directly from pornography, he still built a media empire worth tens of millions of dollars on the back of the Baby Blues.

Give it a think, Current TV. I'm just saying.

Civility vs Glitter

It seems the more I hear about civility and bipartisanship in American politics, the more contrarian I get.

For example. This weekend Michelle Bachmann became the latest target of “glittering” by LGBT activists as she left the stage at the RightOnline conference in Minneapolis. A member of a gay-rights group tried to dump glitter over the congresswoman’s head in protest of her anti-gay rhetoric. Bachmann managed to get away unsparkly, but Newt Gingrich and Tim Pawlenty have been less fortunate.

One of the left-leaning political bloggers on my Twitter feed hates this kind of thing. “I’ll say it: this is dumb,” he wrote sternly. “Stop.”

An Hour With Fatima Bhutto

Original post at The Lumière Reader as part of their coverage of the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival.

The names march down the book’s cover in bold white print: “Granddaughter to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, executed 1979. Niece to Shahnawaz Bhutto, murdered 1985. Daughter of Mir Murtaza Bhutto, assassinated 1996. Niece to Benazir Bhutto, assassinated 2007.”

But when Fatima Bhutto took the stage at the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival, casual in jeans and a loose white blouse, she seemed determined to resist that introduction. “It’s not on my business card, actually, who I’m related to,” she joked. “You could just say Writer.”

It’s a fitting contrast. Fatima’s memoir Songs of Blood and Sword is a political history of the Bhutto dynasty in Pakistan, but it is also an expression of grief and an act of political defiance. In promoting the book, she is attempting to tear down the myths and deceptions that have defined her family for the last four decades.

Breitbart 1, Journalism 0

Dammit, Congressman, I TRUSTED YOU and you LIED TO ME.

Actually I find this kind of tame and silly as far as sex scandals go, particularly since Anthony Weiner has never run on a Family Values, My-Sexuality-Is-Better-Than-Your-Sexuality platform.  What really annoys me is the fact that everyone will spend the next week fawning over Andrew Breitbart as if all the times he's been caught lying and fabricating scandals no longer count.

Peachy. Less than a week before I start journalism school, I get a nice long look at everything that's wrong with the mainstream media.

The one bright spot throughout this incident, oddly enough, has been Gennette Cordova, the recipient of the lewd photograph. From the Washington Post:

According to Cordova, Fenton [a journalist from the New York Post] posed as a photographer’s assistant during the photo session in Bellingham, Wash., where Cordova attends community college. He then “interviewed” her by casually asking a few questions, she said, but without identifying himself as a reporter or saying he was writing a story. Both are generally considered ethical breaches — as Cordova, a journalism student, pointed out by posting a link to the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics.

[...]

“If I’ve refused to do interviews with credible shows like Good Morning America, why would I give an interview to @NewYorkPost?” she tweeted. Again, rhetorically addressing Fenton, she tweeted: “Why would I do an interview with a tabloid about how I don’t want media attention? Trash.”

Someone hire this woman.

Weinergate: Allow Me to Explain How the Internet Works

So, this is happening:

New York Congressman Anthony Weiner said on Wednesday that he did not send a lewd photo over his Twitter account but cannot be sure that the photo was not of him.

"It certainly doesn't look familiar to me, but I don't want to say with certitude to you something that I don't know to be the certain truth," Weiner told CNN in an interview.

"I didn't send any twitter picture," he said, adding that the photo might have been manipulated.

Weiner has said his account was hacked when a lewd photo of a man in bulging boxer briefs was tweeted to a 21-year-old female college student in Washington state over the weekend. ... The student, Gennette Cordova, issued a statement to the New York Daily News that denied she personally knew Weiner but said, "I am a fan."

Here is why I think the news coverage of this story is painfully ridiculous.

I follow politics on Twitter a lot, so I have a pretty good idea of how this corner of Internet fandom works. When we’re not watching the news and debating the issues, we’re joking, arguing and sometimes outright flirting with our favourite media personalities – and there are intricate networks of nicknames, catchphrases and inside jokes for each of them.

Olivia Munn and the Pundit Fans

Aaron Sorkin of The West Wing fame (and some movie about Facebook, like that’ll ever go anywhere) is developing a show about the cable news industry called More as the Story Develops, which is stirring up some fun conversations on the Twitters these days.

The show’s concept has been a fond dream of liberal pundit fans for years, especially since Sorkin likes to use a certain Mr Olbermann as inspiration for his characters. So we were all delighted when we learned the project was going ahead.

Then this happened:

Olivia Munn has found life after the cancellation of her series "Perfect Couples." The actress has joined the cast of Aaron Sorkin's cable news drama at U.S. cable network HBO. ... Munn will play Sloan, one of the "new breed" of sexy financial analysts with a show on [the] network.

Here’s the problem. In pundit fandom, liberal women tend to hate Olivia Munn. No, I mean they hate her. We’re talking the fire of a thousand suns here.

Olbermann's Back

He gets a fancy promo in TIME Magazine and everything:

"Same title, same tirades, new channel. Having parted ways with MSNBC, Olbermann takes his passion for politics to the far reaches of the cable dial, on the channel founded by Al Gore. Current, premieres 6/20."

I'm interested in seeing how the new show plays out. Obviously Current won't give him the ratings that MSNBC did at the end of his eight years there, at least not at first.

But I get my cable news almost entirely through podcasts and online material, and I suspect it's only a matter of time before the old ratings system goes out of style. By throwing his considerable star power behind an interactive, web-savvy channel like Current, Olbermann might be giving the whole system a shove in the right direction.

Now you might be asking yourself, "Gosh, it's been six months since Keith Olbermann left MSNBC. What's he been doing to pass the time?" Oh, you know, the usual - hanging out on the Internet, reading James Thurber short stories aloud to his fans while wearing a vintage baseball jersey over a dress shirt for no apparent reason.



You bet your ass I'm watching his show.

Inside the Beltway

Beltway.

The May 14-20 edition of the New Zealand Listener ran a profile piece on Gerry Brownlee, our rather tactless Minister for Economic Development and the man in charge of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA). When questioned about some of the rumours and criticism surrounding his performance so far, Brownlee replied that the media fuss is "Wellington beltway rubbish".

As someone who watches a fair amount of American cable news, my first reaction was "Ha ha, Wellington has a beltway." As someone who lives in Wellington, my second reaction was "Wait, no we don't."

Not so much.

Of course I had to fire up Google Maps and Wikipedia and get to the bottom of this pressing issue. Sure enough, it turns out that “inside the beltway” is often used by Kiwi commentators to describe out-of-touch political squabbling in Wellington, despite the fact that our capital city has nothing similar to Interstate 495 in Washington D.C.

We have the Wellington Inner City Bypass. We have the InterIsland Ferry Terminal. We have the Terrace Tunnel, and numerous other examples of transportation infrastructure. But no beltway.

It’s a bit silly to pretend that New Zealand politics are anywhere near the influence and self-importance of American politics, but it doesn’t bother me too much. I suspect that the phrase is used in that tongue-in-cheek way that Kiwis are so good at – our tiny capital taking the piss out of Big Bad Washington.

It’s certainly much better than pretending that Wellington is Los Angeles. “Wellywood”, you guys? Really?

Interview: Paul Gilding on "The Great Disruption"

Original post at The Lumière Reader as part of their coverage of the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival.

After 35 years of activism and social entrepreneurship to address climate change and sustainability, including a stint as head of Greenpeace International, Paul Gilding has reached a stark conclusion: “We need to forget about ‘saving the planet.’”

In The Great Disruption: How the Climate Crisis Will Transform the Global Economy, Gilding argues that not only is it too late to avoid a global crisis, but that the crisis has already started. Since the financial meltdown of 2008 we’ve seen rising food and oil prices, new evidence of ecosystem collapse, extreme weather and wildfires, all in the face of an exponential increase in world population and energy consumption.

It’s now a simple matter of maths, physics and system dynamics: our global economic footprint is past the limit where our planet can support it. “We didn’t change,” Gilding says. “So now change will be forced upon us by actual physical consequences” – including energy and food shortages, refugee migrations, and widespread geopolitical conflict.

It’s a hard pill to swallow, but Gilding has clearly been through this debate countless times and from countless different angles, and he’s gathered plenty of evidence to back him up. I had quite a few “Yes, but...!” moments as I read the book, only to have them persuasively addressed several pages later.

The real sticking point of The Great Disruption is whether we can follow Gilding through to the confident “Let’s get to work!” attitude he eventually reaches. After all, he says, after a few million years the planet will recover from the worst we can do to it. Our job is to muster up the courage, compassion and innovation that is necessary to revolutionise the economy and save our civilisation, and he believes that humanity is up to the challenge.

A few weeks into his international book tour, I called Paul Gilding in New York City to find out what makes him so sure.

Uganda and the Anti-Gay Movement

There's a new development on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda, which first made headlines in 2009.  It looks like the death penalty is being dropped from the bill, but there's a chance the rest of it will be voted into law after the new parliamentary session begins next week:

[A]ccording to AP news agency, MP David Bahati, who proposed the legislation, last month said that the death penalty "was something we have moved away from".

Pastor Ssempa also rejected this clause but nevertheless urged the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee to back the bill.

"The parliament should be given the opportunity to discuss and pass the bill, because homosexuality is killing our society," AP news agency quotes him as telling the MPs.

Two things grab my attention.  First, I wonder if the death penalty proposal was actually a trick designed to focus the backlash on an extreme position that they didn't really want - at least not for the time being. By backing away from it now, they can make a show of bending to international pressure and still end up with a bill that sentences gay people to life in prison.

Writers & Readers

I'll be writing reviews and covering the festival for The Lumière Reader again this year, so I've got a frantic but interesting weekend coming up. 

My main assignments are Paul Gilding, former head of Greenpeace International whom I interviewed last month; Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish from Palestine, whose book I really ought to start reading; and my biggest challenge, Fatima Bhutto from Pakistan, who has some opinions about America's foreign policy that she'd like to discuss. I'll probably try to sit in on a couple of the panel discussions as well. 

One day I'll do stuff like this for a living.

Katie Couric Interviews Rachel Maddow

Dammit, Couric and Maddow, why did you make me go to the Glamour Magazine website for this interview? I almost died of pink in there.

Still good stuff from Rachel, though. Some women have TV boyfriends; I have a TV media studies professor/girlfriend. Which is a bit of an issue for her apparently.

[W]hat’s weird about cable is that people get really engaged with news hosts as brands. ... No matter what you’re talking about, people wanted to know more about what you thought about it, because they are interested in you as a person. ... And I don’t want to insert myself into the story. I just want to give a useful analysis of it to help people come to their own conclusions. It’s why I have a conveyor belt of gray blazers — I try to look exactly the same every day. Don’t focus on what I’m wearing. Focus on what’s coming out of my face.

I try, I really do.

Journalism in the Age of Branding

In my efforts to figure out the media landscape and where I might end up, I keep coming back to a great (and long) article by Maureen Tkacik in the Columbia Journalism Review - "Look at Me! A writer's search for journalism in the age of branding." 

Tkacik's experiences as a woman journalist covering issues like the phone sex industry and the hiring practices of American Apparel are worth a read, and I love her perspective on the new culture of self-centred, entertaining/obnoxious political blogs like Gawker and Wonkette. (Speaking of, Ana Marie Cox, where are you?)

More broadly, there's her take on the debate over objectivity in journalism, which I enjoy digging into whenever I get the chance. 

Privilege in Politics: The NRA Convention

Yesterday TRMS devoted most of the show to the 2011 NRA Convention in Pittsburgh. It's good TV (look, it's Rachel Maddow surrounded by conservatives with guns!) and a stark example of what we mean when we talk about social privilege.

John McCain's daughter Meghan, a proud NRA member, invited Maddow on a "date" to this year's convention in an effort to give a fresh perspective on gun culture. Maddow is a vocal critic of the NRA who happens to enjoy hanging out at the shooting range, so they had plenty to talk about.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

At this point, just to be fair, I should say that there were probably many people at that convention who could have debated this more effectively than Meghan McCain. ("I don't think that's necessarily true, but... You're arguing very well, Rachel.")  That being said, compare her perspective to that of Rev Ricky Burgess, City Councilman for Pittsburgh's poorest and most crime-infested district.

Remember Where You Were

I was at the office on a slow Monday afternoon when the news broke of Osama bin Laden's death. More importantly, I was on Twitter.

My Twitter feed is full of reporters, pundits, newsroom staffers, bloggers and everyday political wonks, so when the White House announced that the President was making a statement with almost no warning we all dropped what we were doing and started speculating. I was one of the people who guessed it had something to do with Libya. Others thought it might be the tornadoes in Alabama – but why wait until late on a Sunday night in the US to speak about that? Just to interrupt Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” on TV, someone joked. We all laughed and retweeted it.

Then we heard it had something to do about national security. “Gaddafi stepping down? Bin Laden dead?” a blogger guessed, and I replied “Wouldn’t that last one be something.”

Lara Logan Speaks Out

CBS journalist Lara Logan speaks out about the brutal sexual assault she endured in Tahrir Square, Egypt. This interview is one of the most courageous things I've ever seen anyone do.

Blog revamp

Since I'm going to be studying for my National Diploma in Journalism at Whitireia in a month, I thought it was time to change the focus of the blog a bit. "Travel & Books" are still interests of mine, but 1) I doubt I'll have much time or money for either while I'm at school, and 2) I spend most of my time online talking about the news anyway.  This ought to be a good way to keep track of what I'm learning, discuss politics and current events at greater length, and get some additional writing practice.

Or, you know, I might leave the blog untouched for months at a time. That's possible too.

John Galt and Me

Here’s the kind of person I am: I read Atlas Shrugged as a joke.

Political satire is one of my favourite things, and this novel from the 1950’s has been gathering a lot of snark potential. Members of the Tea Party keep name-dropping Ayn Rand, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin requires his staffers to read the book, and now a film version is being released on – you guessed it – 15 April. (The deadline for taxes is actually 18 April this year but whatever.)

One day as I was goofing off on Twitter, I had an idea. I’d get the book from the library (the socialist library, HA!) and live-tweet my reactions as I read it – kind of a “Mystery Science Theatre 3000” thing for my liberal friends. I was so gleeful about it that I went to the library that same afternoon.

And that’s when I discovered that Atlas Shrugged is 1,168 pages long.

The joke was on me, but I’d already announced my plans to everybody – I couldn’t back out now. I took the heavy paperback home with me and got started. One month, eight days and $7.00 in library fines later, here’s what I discovered.

Sometimes you just need a picture of a kitty.

the smallest, originally uploaded by christinelinnell.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) runs a volunteer programme that includes providing foster homes for animals recovering from illness or surgery. They provide all the food and supplies and help the volunteers take care of the animals until they're healthy and ready for adoption.

While I was in Paraparaumu I helped my friends take care of four sick kittens. They all looked pretty miserable when we got them - this little girl had us worried for the first few days - but by the time I moved back to Wellington they were climbing all over the place.

It was hard work but I loved taking care of them. You'd be surprised how fast you get the hang of administering eye drops to a grumpy kitten before she can get her needle-sharp claws into you, and how exciting it is when she finally starts eating on her own. And then, of course, cuddles!

If you've got the time and space to be a foster care provider I would totally recommend it.

Christchurch

I was at a science conference in Auckland when I heard the news. The announcement silenced everyone in the room. It didn't make sense; Christchurch had already been through a major earthquake six months ago. They had been recovering from the scare, learning their lessons and thanking God that damage had been minimal and no-one had been killed. It wasn't supposed to turn out like this.

The thing I've learned about New Zealand is that all tragedies are local tragedies. This isn't a distant city we only see in the newspaper. We know this place. If we don't have family and friends in Christchurch, then someone close to us does. We've been there; we remember what the streets were like, where we felt the most at home. When something like this happens, it hits all of us.

And so we have this instinct to support each other - open our doors to strangers, share information, be kind to each other - that I haven't felt in quite the same way anywhere else. Help will come from all over the world, but New Zealanders will get through this the way they get through everything: by getting back on their feet and standing together.

On the Kapiti Coast

butterfly kite, originally uploaded by christinelinnell.

I spent Christmas, New Year's and most of January living with friends at their beach house in Paraparaumu. The town is a bit shabby and suburban but the beach is excellent, wide and flat with smooth white sand. I spent my time there going for runs, taking the dog out to chase seagulls and photographing the sunsets.

Beyond the farm and the theme park

Wellington-based physicist Sir Paul Callaghan was recently named New Zealander of the Year. I had the opportunity to interview him about his latest book in April 2009. Originally published on the Futureintech website.

As a boy growing up in Wanganui in the Sixties, Paul Callaghan saw physics everywhere. “It was the age following Sputnik. There was a big emphasis on science. And physics is beautiful – it was always a part of my life. I got up to stuff, basically. I built my first crystal radio set when I was ten or eleven, and I was able to pick up two radio stations. It’s life-changing for any young boy.”

Fifty years later, Dr. Callaghan is one of the leading physicists in New Zealand, author or co-author of three books and over 200 scientific articles, and the founding director of the Wellington-based company Magritek. But while he views scientific innovation as the key for New Zealand’s prosperity, he feels that we’re held back from our full potential by a myth of our own making.

In his latest book, Wool to Weta: Transforming New Zealand’s Culture & Economy, Callaghan makes the case that New Zealand needs to shift from its overreliance on tourism and agriculture, and invest in a new economy based on science, technology, and intellectual property. As he notes in the book’s preface, “David Lange once said, cheekily, that New Zealand’s destiny was to be a theme park, while Australia’s destiny was to be a quarry. This book tells the story of how we must move beyond the farm and the theme park if we are to build sustainable prosperity in New Zealand, protecting our natural environment in the process.”

Wrestling with Zinn

Once when I was eleven or twelve, my dad kept my brothers and me at the kitchen table after dinner. In a grim voice, he warned us that there were big changes coming to America’s school system and we would have to be on our guard.

Dad told us that schools were about to start rewriting American history and indoctrinating their students with a politically-correct ideology called Multiculturalism. The goal of this change was to empower other countries and cultures by making us feel ashamed of our Western heritage.

Instead of learning that Christopher Columbus was the heroic discoverer of the New World, we would be told that he was a bad man who murdered the Indians. Instead of learning about the noble ideas of the Founding Fathers, we would be told that they were atheists and slave owners. If we didn’t pay attention, our teachers might trick us into thinking that America is evil and send the quality of education in this country down the drain.

Eighteen years later, I can say with relief and some bemusement that multicultural education has not led me to intellectual ruin. (Though of course that’s exactly what an indoctrinated person would say... Just kidding, Dad.) What it has done is encourage me to rethink old assumptions and work harder to empathise with different points of view. In a lot of ways it’s the driving force behind my love of travel and my curiosity about people.

The latest step in this journey was to read A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. I knew almost nothing about him when he passed away a little over a year ago, but my progressive friends responded to his death with such emotion that I bought the book that same afternoon. The thick, densely-written paperback sat glaring at me from my bookshelf until this past Christmas, when I set the goal of finishing it by the end of my holiday.

Paraparaumu Line

Not bad for a fifty-minute commute to work.

Keith Olbermann Signs Off

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I didn’t start watching “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” until 2008. To be honest, I was determined to dislike him at first. I’d already chosen even-tempered Rachel Maddow as my political role model, and Olbermann seemed like something else altogether – loud, pushy, full of self-righteous indignation. A left-wing version of Bill O’Reilly, I thought. Obviously I was far too intellectual and sophisticated for such things.

Turns out I was wrong, both about my first impression of Olbermann and that whole sophistication thing. As the media became obsessed with Sarah Palin, I found myself sitting up late at night poring over news coverage on the Internet, looking for someone who was fighting back – some sign that Americans hadn’t completely lost their minds. One night I stumbled across one of Olbermann’s Special Comments on YouTube. Within two weeks, I’d watched all of them.

You Suck (Not That There's Anything Wrong With That)

Lately I've been thinking a lot about feminist language and the importance of identifying common phrases that contribute to prejudice in our culture.

For instance, using "bitch" or "whore" as an insult is rightly called out by feminists as reinforcing misogynist stereotypes about women, and saying "that's gay" to mean "that's stupid" feeds into a culture of homophobia. This kind of language can be harmful even when modern usage has obscured the original meaning of the phrase - like "that's lame", an insult to the physically handicapped.

So what about the phrase "you suck"?

Think about it. This is generally accepted to be a reference to oral sex. So if we say "you suck" to imply that someone is weak or stupid, are we not saying that people who perform oral sex on men - i.e. women and homosexuals - are also weak and stupid? Aren't we reinforcing heteronormative stereotypes about dominance in sexual relationships? What if every time we say "My god, does Twilight suck" we're not only reinforcing stupid vampire puns but also teaching our impressionable youth that some forms of sex are better, more virtuous, more valid than others?

Hmmm.

Later, I will consider the possibility that "go f*** yourself" perpetuates unhealthy attitudes toward masturbation.

An Expat's View of Arizona

Last week in Tucson, Arizona, 22-year-old Jared Laughner opened fire on a crowd of people who had gathered to meet U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords in a Safeway parking lot. Fourteen people were injured and six were killed, including a nine-year-old girl. Giffords was shot through the head but survived and is expected to recover.

For an American living in a different country, events like this one are especially difficult. There’s an exhaustion that sinks over me, along with the shock and grief, as headlines of yet another shooting in the United States dominate the local media. I know that my friends and colleagues are going to have questions for me. Because to them, America’s gun culture is not just controversial but incomprehensible, something they can’t get their heads around.

2010

What can I say about 2010?

I complained a lot. I watched as everyone around me seemed to go through personal hardship at the same time – illness, unemployment, relationship woes, deaths of family or friends. I saw my native America face issues of racism, sexism, homophobia and social injustice. We made progress on some, found new and spectacular ways to fail at others.

I fretted over my unfinished novel and began to get bored with my office job. I tried and generally failed to go to parties and stay out late in bars the way functioning adults are supposed to do. I did, however, learn to appreciate booze.