All I Want To Say Is That They Don’t Really Care About Bubbles

After MSNBC switched to HD, I’ve been watching a lot more of it recently. I’m not sure why, maybe it’s because of the flashy new graphics or their two new shows Morning Meeting and Dr. Nancy. Which is funny, cause neither really appeal to me that much. I find that host of Morning Meeting to be a bit callous and Dr. Nancy a health show doesn’t seem like something I would regularly tune into (it’s a health show that airs in the middle of the day, five days a week). What really caught my eye were a couple of segments from Morning Joe.
The first one, posted online as White House Trying To Control The Press?msnbc.com:White House trying to control the press? was about that probably now infamous reporter from the Huffington Post who was in contact with the White House before hand about what questions he was going to ask during a press conference. The piece on MSNBC started with Helen Thomas and Chip Reed (I hope I got this name right too) bickering with the White House Press Secretary about the Obama administration controlling the press.
The whole thing is actually a bit hard to follow (I’ve even seen something on Reliable Sources about it and I’m still a bit perplexed) I’m not sure what was asked, how the White House communicated with this reporter (in the video clip Helen Thomas mentioned a phone call but I initially heard of an email) and if something like this is common (later in the video it sounds like it has happened before).
So with all these questions, I’m really on the fence on this one, it’s easy to bash the White House Press Secretary and say that he is controlling the media as he was in contact with reporters about what questions were asked but I have no idea what’s how it usually goes down and what exactly was said so I can’t really say anything. But it does seem fishy and it worries me if these allegations of controlling the press are true, its really frightening. But then again why worry? The press has a lot of power and when they report on this possible injustice happening, people will get riled up and they will be forced to change their ways, I hope.
The second video from Morning Joe that I wanted to make note of was one on the future of the future of print media. The President and the CEO of the Aspen Institute Walter Isaacson spoke via satellite msnbc.com:Bright future for print media? I’m assuming to Joe and Mika about the future of print media and I was shocked to hear him call print media a wonderful technology. A technology, take that in. Nutty, maybe. It gets even more odd, too. He also thinks it’s a great way to store information and retrieve it. I would beg to differ. That stack of newspapers in my basement is a real eyesore and a complete bitch to find stuff in. I’d rather just stick some keywords in Google or what seems to be the new in-thing Bing and get an article like that. However, I do agree with him that its a great way to flip through and enjoy the news. You don’t have your laptop fan waling at you, the sounds of people logging onto messenger, pop ups on the screen asking you to update your software, your just there with the news. That is something unmatched by any website out there and newspapers as ridiculous as it seems should start advertising this as a feature. It’s away to spend a couple of hours if you wish to just get away from all those screens and noise and just relax and read, it’s a bit therapeutic in away.
Anyways, Isaacson also said that it’s important to have an online component (very true) then he went on to say that people should be able to pay a little for it (crazy talk, again). People aren’t going to pay for things that they could get free elsewhere, unless, it’s an opinion site with views that you can’t get anywhere else. Also, he said there’s a great future for print (crazy talk, again). I don’t believe this until I see changes in the print industry and as it looks right now its going to be a bumpy ride for a while.
Other crazy ideas by this anchor I’ve never seen before, hand newspapers over to young people, collapse the Monday through Thursday sections and only publish it on the weekend when people have time to read it. WTF? Well, getting younger people on the team would make sense but publishing a few times a week? What?
Well there’s more crazy talk from the other group of people, those who seem overly eager to find the latest and the greatest on the internet (and I use that term lightly very lightly) to determine what journalism will be. A ridiculous article by the AP asks if Twitter would be the news outlet for the 21st century. Is Twitter the news outlet for the 21st century? by AP: Yahoo! Tech Simple answer, No. No, no and no. It’s a fad remember pet rocks, Furbies, Pokemon, even My Space, this too will pass. But why will it fail? It seems people seem to forget that you only have just over 100 characters to get a message across and you simply can’t get anything worth while across like that. Also, when Twitter gets bigger there will be so much buzzing around that probably none of it will matter. It just doesn’t make any sense, what would spook me more would be YouTube’s new channel that’s encouraging citizen journalism. The Technology Chronicles : Journalism stars instruct citizen reporters on YouTube It’s basically a how to guide on how to be a journalist. Journalist such as Katie Couric and Tavis Smiley spill their secrets and encourage novices to become citizen journalist, which might be just shooting themselves in the foot.
Moving on, I spotted an article that really touched me personally. G.M., Detroit and the Fall of the Black Middle Class – NYTimes.com The New York Times Magazine, I believe it was published quite a lengthy article on the impact that the fall of General Motors had on middle class Black families. I really recommend reading all of it. It’s incredibly well written, passionate and relatable and quite a piece of journalism something I could only dream of creating lol. I think it really would silence the critics out there that keep bashing in the government for assisting these companies and for people to understand the impact companies like GM have in peoples lives. I really recommend checking it out. I also recommend checking out the Op-ed on Canada Day published in the New York Times on June 30th. Op-Ed Contributors – Our True North – NYTimes.com I found it really interesting and I frankly was shocked to see Canada Day even mentioned in a major US publication.
One last thing I want to say before I put this blog post out of it’s misery. Although there’s been a lot of talk about a video that recently surfaced of Michael Jackson preforming They Don’t Really Care About Us. I wanted to talk about the controversy over a piece that aired on Anderson Cooper 360 about Bubbles, Michael Jackson’s former pet chimp. I haven’t seen the piece in its entirety but it really sounds as if people have been giving it a hard time, it was spoofed on the Colbert Report and also made it onto the Huffington Post. From what I saw I didn’t see anything wrong with doing a report on Bubbles, the chimp. Bubbles was one of the most well known symbols of Michael Jackson’s over the top lifestyle and finding the chimp seemed legitimate. I had no idea that Bubbles was still around I didn’t know what happened to him, however it is easy to go over board with a story like this. Leading a broadcast with a story about Bubbles, not a good idea. Ending a broadcast, with a lighthearted story on Bubbles, is however acceptable. Keyword, lighthearted, getting really serious on a story like this just comes across as odd. When AC360 re-aired the bit that originally aired on the Colbert Report, that clip in-turn had parts from the original CNN story, I could have sworn that I heard Anderson mumble that the criticism was deserved so maybe all the hubbub was legitimate.