Ever since the world of newspaper journalism began collapsing, I've been on the hunt for the next stage of media. I read all the media sites- journalismjobs.com, mediabistro.com, Poynter, etc. You would think that 15+ years of writing and editing for respected newspapers would bring me closer to the answers. But apparently, between Sam Zell's hatchet job on the Tribune Company and the general decline of newspaper readers in this country, we're sinking deeper and deeper into the conclusion that news as we've known it for more than a century, is over. Experts seem convinced that there will always be a need for journalists but what do we do in the mean time? To put it lightly, it's been a rough road since I left my last newspaper job in 2004...
The Web seems to be the next big medium. At least, that's what everyone has said. Yet, it doesn't matter if you are a star print reporter with killer Web skills...Potential employers may pay lip service to your news judgement and other abilities but can't spend more than $35K on your salary. The one Web site/newspaper which began making noise in the last year is Phil Anschutz's Examiner.com, which purports to be re-inventing the news wheel by having an edition in more than 60 cities. The plan is that each section (Politics, Health, Entertainment...) will have one content manager directing it and there will be national and local "examiners" covering the news in that specific section via blogging (although they don't like to call it that). The catch? The examiners are not reporters. They don't necessarily have any journalism background, although many are recently displaced reporters of local and nation repute. They don't even get paid because they're not technically employees of the Examiner. If their writing generates enough page views, THEN they get paid.
I went up for one of these content management positions at the Examiner. I felt really comfortable with my background and was heartened to learn that the pay scale was actually fair. Maybe even more than fair. But after only a couple of interviews I was mysteriously and abruptly dropped from the process. I couldn't figure it out until I Googled the people who would have been my supervisors. As it turns out, the education and experience level of most people who work for the Examiner is less than impressive. One guy with whom I interviewed has one year of community college experience. It doesn't make sense, until you stop to realize that in 2008, nobody is interested in accuracy, experience or education anymore. Blogs about nothing more than what someone ate for dinner that day or which party they attended have made plenty of people rich and even famous so why ask for more? The bar has moved down and people both post and accept whatever is published on Wikipedia as fact, so the trained, qualified copy editor has essentially become irrelevant. The question is, where are these bloggers and "examiners" getting their so-called news?? It appears that good old traditional sources, such as an AP feed are still being used. But even AP has sold out, to some degree, allowing for its information to be manipulated accordingly for each Web site client.
We've entered a sad time. A time when a presidential candidate can be besmirched for the level of his education. A time when "elitism" is a bad word. A time when businesses are so confident that worthless, baseless information sells that they are willing to gamble on inexperience and are unwilling to pay for experience. The world now turns on the whims of the lowest common denominator.
As long as people are more interested in the details of Paris Hilton's life, the media will continue this dumbing down process. More arts critics and news reporters will lose their jobs. And bit by bit, Americans will lose its collective intelligence. As it is, we have already discovered that most Americans are now distrustful of intellectualism. Some of our most important jobs- teaching, for example- are devalued by their paltry salaries. The same thing is happening in media. If you don't want to think about or even hear new ideas, if you only care about celebrity sightings and whether Oprah endorses a certain product, if you never question anything, well, this won't matter to you. For people like me, who still care about quality and accuracy, it hurts to be penalized for possessing integrity and ability. And it hurts to know that my fellow Americans no longer care about quality or accuracy. These same people may not realize it now, but the people they are hurting the most with their ignorance and apathy are none other than themselves.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
China: As Bad as Russia, Just Not as Smart
Is anyone else tired of the ruse that is Beijing? At first, it was just the whole notion that they would go to the lengths of changing little girls' passports in order to have them "legitimately" compete as 16-year-olds in the Olympics. As though anyone in- or out!- of the free world is incapable of recognizing a pre-adolescent in a leotard.
Then, there was the lip-synching debacle where at the last minute, one pretty little girl was presented to the world as the "singer" when actually, another one (deemed not as pretty by Chinese officials) was doing the singing.
And now, the New York Times reports that two elderly women in their 70s have been sentenced to labor camp for protesting in a government sanctioned protest area during the Olympics. Both women walk with canes and one of them is going blind. This is what is referred to as "re-education" by the Chinese government.
Frankly, China is not the only communist country that imposes such extreme standards on its citizens. But the Chinese, unlike others, seems completely oblivious to the fact that all of this is now happening on the world stage, with thousands of foreign journalists reporting on it. This is not to make light of the despicable actions of the former U.S.S.R. But it does point up to something interesting, in that the Chinese evidently believe they don't answer to anyone. In fact, they aren't even responsible for their own image.
China, in its bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, agreed to the rules and ostensibly understood that in this age of speedy technology, not many stones would be left unturned at the hands of so many journalists. So, why on earth would they make no attempt to loosen the rules for a few weeks or at least think twice before acting in front of millions of people? Instead, they have heedlessly flaunted their sloppiness and may even take pride in their obsession to "be the best."
It doesn't help matters that several other protesters, visible to the visiting media one day, have mysteriously disappeared the next.
Having the Olympics in Beijing was a big mistake. This government obviously doesn't deserve the money and glamour associated with being a host city. At the same time, perhaps increased publicity will convince the rest of the world that something needs to be done about China. There is simply no excuse for breaking the rules and treating people this way. And now we have the proof in prime time.
Then, there was the lip-synching debacle where at the last minute, one pretty little girl was presented to the world as the "singer" when actually, another one (deemed not as pretty by Chinese officials) was doing the singing.
And now, the New York Times reports that two elderly women in their 70s have been sentenced to labor camp for protesting in a government sanctioned protest area during the Olympics. Both women walk with canes and one of them is going blind. This is what is referred to as "re-education" by the Chinese government.
Frankly, China is not the only communist country that imposes such extreme standards on its citizens. But the Chinese, unlike others, seems completely oblivious to the fact that all of this is now happening on the world stage, with thousands of foreign journalists reporting on it. This is not to make light of the despicable actions of the former U.S.S.R. But it does point up to something interesting, in that the Chinese evidently believe they don't answer to anyone. In fact, they aren't even responsible for their own image.
China, in its bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, agreed to the rules and ostensibly understood that in this age of speedy technology, not many stones would be left unturned at the hands of so many journalists. So, why on earth would they make no attempt to loosen the rules for a few weeks or at least think twice before acting in front of millions of people? Instead, they have heedlessly flaunted their sloppiness and may even take pride in their obsession to "be the best."
It doesn't help matters that several other protesters, visible to the visiting media one day, have mysteriously disappeared the next.
Having the Olympics in Beijing was a big mistake. This government obviously doesn't deserve the money and glamour associated with being a host city. At the same time, perhaps increased publicity will convince the rest of the world that something needs to be done about China. There is simply no excuse for breaking the rules and treating people this way. And now we have the proof in prime time.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
New Age Hospitality Not So Much...
Remember when your parents had dinner parties? You would get dressed up, proudly serve appetizers and maybe even take a drink order or two if your dad was busy. Your mother spent days shopping for ingredients and cooking, baking and cleaning. Your dad stocked up at the liquor store. No expense was too grand, because GUESTS were coming!
There is a Polish saying, which says that when a guest in the house, God is in the house. In other words, treat this person as someone deserving of special treatment. Make him or her welcome in your home. My own parents continue to operate on this notion, as do their now grown children.
Increasingly, however, it seems that modern hosts are determined to exert the least effort possible in gathering people to their homes. "Party" used to mean that the person inviting you was going to provide food, drink and interesting company. Polite guests would generally bring along what was commonly referred to as the non-obligatory "host gift"- that is, a bottle of wine to augment the meal or perhaps a bouquet of flowers to brighten the room.
These days, invitations are issued via e-mail and usually, the party entails that the guests be responsible for their own food and/or drinks. Even in the most impoverished societies, people present a guest with the best they have, be it fresh milk from their one cow, freshly baked bread or even some homemade liquor they were saving for a special occasion. In these United States, financially comfortable people have no compunction about asking people to bring "whatever you want to drink," or even to provide all the courses ("potluck" is code for "bring your own everything." I've even been to parties where they don't have serving dishes!).
Is all this sheer laziness? Do these hosts think that people really prefer to buy and cook their own food and schlep it across town, when they could simply eat it in the comfort of their own homes? What's the alleged draw? So we can admire their new deck or suffer through their precocious 10-year-old's recitation of her tough school day? (Without little assignments to dole out hors d'oeuvres, the kids get bored really easily).
Miss Manners may still have all the answers but it seems as though people aren't listening. In this age of the iPod and online relationships, it seems that the concept of connection, in the form of politeness and protocol has all but vanished. The only parties deemed worthy of formal hospitality nowadays seem to be weddings and I'm sorry to say that this, too, probably has more to do with the laziness and greed that currently permeates our society. It says that the only time people are willing to host a gracious party is when there is the chance that the guests will pony up big presents. What happened to the collective enjoyment of good food, good wine and good company?
It's not too late to save what's left of American decorum. Throw a party soon and honor your guests by personalizing it and presenting them with all your best efforts. It doesn't have to be lavish. You don't have to present 10 courses. Just taking the time to care and connect with friends will mean so much to all of you in this plugged in, tuned out world.
There is a Polish saying, which says that when a guest in the house, God is in the house. In other words, treat this person as someone deserving of special treatment. Make him or her welcome in your home. My own parents continue to operate on this notion, as do their now grown children.
Increasingly, however, it seems that modern hosts are determined to exert the least effort possible in gathering people to their homes. "Party" used to mean that the person inviting you was going to provide food, drink and interesting company. Polite guests would generally bring along what was commonly referred to as the non-obligatory "host gift"- that is, a bottle of wine to augment the meal or perhaps a bouquet of flowers to brighten the room.
These days, invitations are issued via e-mail and usually, the party entails that the guests be responsible for their own food and/or drinks. Even in the most impoverished societies, people present a guest with the best they have, be it fresh milk from their one cow, freshly baked bread or even some homemade liquor they were saving for a special occasion. In these United States, financially comfortable people have no compunction about asking people to bring "whatever you want to drink," or even to provide all the courses ("potluck" is code for "bring your own everything." I've even been to parties where they don't have serving dishes!).
Is all this sheer laziness? Do these hosts think that people really prefer to buy and cook their own food and schlep it across town, when they could simply eat it in the comfort of their own homes? What's the alleged draw? So we can admire their new deck or suffer through their precocious 10-year-old's recitation of her tough school day? (Without little assignments to dole out hors d'oeuvres, the kids get bored really easily).
Miss Manners may still have all the answers but it seems as though people aren't listening. In this age of the iPod and online relationships, it seems that the concept of connection, in the form of politeness and protocol has all but vanished. The only parties deemed worthy of formal hospitality nowadays seem to be weddings and I'm sorry to say that this, too, probably has more to do with the laziness and greed that currently permeates our society. It says that the only time people are willing to host a gracious party is when there is the chance that the guests will pony up big presents. What happened to the collective enjoyment of good food, good wine and good company?
It's not too late to save what's left of American decorum. Throw a party soon and honor your guests by personalizing it and presenting them with all your best efforts. It doesn't have to be lavish. You don't have to present 10 courses. Just taking the time to care and connect with friends will mean so much to all of you in this plugged in, tuned out world.
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