And now, a memo from Channel 9

Things the WGN anchors aren’t allowed to say any more.
 
Apparently, Tribune Co. CEO Randy Michaels sent a memo with over 100 phrases, words and the like that must not be uttered on the airwaves under any circumstance.
 
 At first, I thought this was stupid, if not alarming: are we dumbing down news language yet again? Oh dear God. Is “torpor” shooting too high for our Chicago audience?
 
Turns out I was mistaken. While some of the items on the list have a dubious quality (“laud” and “icon” are now forbidden? was there some cock-up of which I’m unaware?), others are more than fine with me. Such as “Giving 110%”;  “Completely destroyed, completely abolished, completely finished or any other completely redundant use”; “fatal death”; “the fact of the matter.” I make fun of these nuggets in class often enough. Feels good to see the pros axing them as well.

Finally, Fox gives me something that makes me feel good

"I'm Not Saying Your Mother's a Whore: Jon Stewart on the O'Reilly Factor. I don't know, seems to me the points Mr. Stewart makes are irrefutable, especially when you Youtube some of Fox and Friends' more telling moments. I'm going to use some of this banter as examples of various rhetorical tropes. There's analogy, erotesis, synechdoche, and so many others that I have to change my pants after listing them. Enjoy.

Fox News Isn't Even Pretending Any More [to be objective], from Salon.com.

From this month's Utne:

The General Social Survey, a periodic assessment of Americans’ moods and values, shows an 11-point decline from 1976 to 2008 in the number of Americans who believe other people can generally be trusted. Institutions haven’t fared any better. Over the same time period, trust has declined in the press (from 29 to 9 percent), education (38 to 29 percent), banks (41 percent to 20 percent), corporations (23 to 16 percent), and organized religion (33 to 20 percent). Gallup’s 2008 governance survey showed that trust in the government was as low as it was during the Watergate era.

So the media took the biggest bath in the wake of a political scandal (reported on by the media), whereas education comes out just slightly ahead of religion (in the wake of Catholic sex abuse scandals). I don't really know what this reveals about John Q. Citizen and his notions of what's trustworthy or not. I do know it's not reassuring about John Q. Citizen, though.

More about the Citizen Patriot another day. I'm constantly bemused by their editorials. Yesterday's, for example: Congress wanted to pass a bill lining up successors to House members in case of a full-on attack on the Capitol. The editorial calls this "arcane" and says, "to date, last we checked, this hasn't happened." Sure. Like, on Sept. 10, the Pentagon hadn't been hit by a plane. Archaic. That's a hoot. I must shut up now, or I'll never run out of steam.

Got a message from NINE yesterday: The Tribune's print edition will no longer be available for my classroom. They'll give me a free online E-version subscription. But no more dead tree version.

I give up. I've lost the battle.

For years, I've converted class after class to the joys of a print newspaper (in theory, anyway). I taught them how to Scan the Headlines Over Coffee. How to Fold it Irritably, how to Hide Behind It in a Crowd, and (my personal favorite) how to Read the Fucking Thing and Ignore the Dumb Ads.

I scored these frugal victories in the face of competition from reality television, Stephanie Meyer books and the drone and whine of our heady froth of pop culture. And now the Trib itself is saying, "Sorry, pal, but those sugar-addled, pizza-faced trolls aren't worth it." Nice. Validation goes miles in my world.

Time for a new lesson plan: How to be a Know-Nothing Pundit. I am now the Mr. Irwin of Media and Journalism Studies. The Machiavelli of Reporting 101. Ideals be damned. Work with the world as it is.

My first words to class tomorrow: "All right, who here can use the phrase "liberal cream puff" in a 200-word rant against Obama? The winner gets an internship."

Sad day indeed, when the best political commentary comes from...

...Cracked.com.

I’ve already heard that Obama and Palin are both fairly inexperienced. And I’ve heard that McCain doesn’t know how to use the internet. I’ve heard all the “pig in lipstick” and “I can see Russia from here” lines, because they’ve been repeatedly jammed down my throat over and over and over again. How could I miss them?

I don’t need to hear again about who was a Community Organizer, and who thinks that “Community Organizer” is a laughable position. I’m not concerned with how many houses someone has. I don’t need to be told that someone is a terrific speaker. I don’t care how anyone feels about hockey, and I don’t need to hear about what Priests a candidate may or may not have hung around at some point for some amount of time.

And if I hear “Hey, the bottom line is, she sold the plane” one more fucking time, I’m going to track down that plane, buy the shit out of it, and crash it directly into the White House, regardless of who’s living there. Test me on this.

I feel like all we’re getting are lies and lines, and no one’s talking about the issues and no one’s holding anyone accountable. Media, you’re supposed to be on our side. Stop repeating the same sound bites over and over again. In the history of forever, has a President’s ability to do his job been enhanced or impaired as a result of how they feel about moose-hunting? Then shut up about it.

I mean, is Adam McKay right? Is the media completely dead? Subquestion, why the shit am I getting the most honest and insightful political information from Adam McKay?

Oh yeah. I'm feeling the logic.

That damned left-wing media...

Pop quiz, sea monkeys! Who said the following quotes about the media?

1. "Don't believe the right-wing ideologues when they tell you the left still controls the media agenda. It does not any longer. It's a fact."

a) liberal comedian/pundit Al Franken
b) liberal fillamker Michael Moore
c) liberal Fox News commentator Alan Colmes
d) Fox News pundit Bill O'Reilly

2. [The] idea the media now tilt toward liberals is absurd."

a) CNN journalist Wolf Blitzer
b) MSNBC's Keith Olberman
c) Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas
d) conservative analyst Bruce Bartlett

3. "[There's] this cottage industry [in the media] in which it pays to be unobjective. It pays to be subjective as much as possible. It's a great way to have your cake and eat it, too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It's a great little racket."

a) political commentator Jay Marvin
b) White House reporter Helen Thomas
c) Hardball's Chris Matthews
d) Weekly Standard's Matt Labash

4. "We have the media now."

a) New York Times' publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.
b) Washington Post former editor Ben Bradlee
c) a secret cabal of pro-Israel newspaper owners
d) conservative pundit Ann Coulter

If you guessed "d" to all of the above, you win the grand prize: sight over ignorance! Truth over slander! And a date with me, at the NRA rally of your choice!

WORKS CITED

O'Reilly's comments: The No-Spin Zone, July 2005 (transcript currently unavailable on Fox's website)
Bartlett's comments: Realclearpolitics.com
Labash's comments: Interview on journalismjobs.com
Coulter's comment: Interview with Sean Hannity July, 2005 (soundbyte courtesy of Oliver Willis)

Research compiled by Eric Alterman. Sapere aude, indeed.

Somebody needs to give Bill O'Reilly a reading assignment.

From Kirk Russell's The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Elliot:

Any informed conservative is reluctant to condense profound and intricate intellectual systems to a few pretentious phrases; he prefers to leave that technique to the enthusiasm of radicals. Conservatism is not a fixed and immutable body of dogma, and conservatives inherit from Burke a talent for re-expressing their convictions to fit the time.

See that, Bill? Talking Points that spoon feeds us a few phrases (ego-inflated rather than pretentious, I suppose) are for spaghetti-kneed liberals. Oh, the irony is delicious.

Oh wait, Bill, I know what you'd say. You'd remind me that the following sentence in the passage I've truncated reads:

As a working premise, nevertheless, one can observe here that the essence of social conservatism is preservation of the ancient moral traditions of humanity. Conservatives respect the wisdom of their ancestors (this phrase was Strafford’s, and Hooker’s, before Burke illuminated it); they are dubious of wholesale alteration.

So, does that fit into Scalia's "original intent" framework? Doesn't that pretty well kibosh the revisions made to Article I, Section II of the Constitution? Or the 13th, 19th and 21st Amendments, right? Aren't those alterations that could be classified as "wholesale"?

I'm obviously not directly addressing Bill here. But if I were, Bill and I might agree on Russell's final point:

[Conservatives] think society is a spiritual reality, possessing an eternal life but a delicate constitution: it cannot be scrapped and recast as if it were a machine.

So...there you go. Just like we can't pack everything up in Iraq in a suitcase and Fed Ex it over here, so we can't fine-tune our laws and liberties to fit a particular agenda...any agenda.

(Note--this whole post exploded over a segment I can't find online, which makes me feel somewhat ridiculous, and a homework assignment about conservatism, which I have abbreviated here. Indulge me.)

OK, OK, I'll admit it...I checked into the Paris Hilton thing.

I saw the "Breaking News" icon on Google during my routine search for young women in prison and heard about Friday's whole "she's in prison!" "she's out of prison!" "no, wait, she's back in prison!" tragedy. Then I found the online petition to let her go (signed by a multitude of fans who make up in love what they lack in grammar and logic). Then I found her myspace page, with another petition signed by well-wishers and "haters" alike. Then I found the Paris Hilton Prison Diary. It's not the Onion, but it's not bad when laughing at another's plight.

Even the New York Times covered the debacle. But they also brought up the Libby trial and what is, in my mind, the greatest judicial billet doux this millenium has seen thus far:

Also on Friday, the judge who sentenced I. Lewis Libby Jr. to prison this week issued an order dripping with sarcasm after receiving a supporting brief from a dozen prominent legal scholars, including Alan M. Dershowitz of Harvard and Robert H. Bork, the former Supreme Court nominee.

The judge, Reggie B. Walton of Federal District Court in Washington, said he would be pleased to see similar efforts for defendants less famous than Mr. Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.

"The court trusts," Judge Walton wrote, in a footnote longer than the order itself, that the brief for Mr. Libby "is a reflection of these eminent academics’ willingness in the future to step up to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this court and throughout the courts of our nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions."

"The court," he added, "will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries."

--NY Times.

Oh no he didn't! Well, it might not be Atticus Finch, but he still just made my Heroes List.

JibJab's "What We Call the News". My views on cable news 24-hour stations not having enough news to fill 24 hours a day are on record. Good to see them annotated.

Dumb Internet links for a Saturday morning when I should be working:

Fair Education Foundation: http://www.fixedearth.com. According to today's Times, Representative Chisum of Texas argued that evolution is a Rabbinical text-inspired theory, and therefore should not be taught in school. He must have missed the news about Einstein and relativity.

Challenge Blasphemy: http://www.challengeblasphemy.com. Youtube has had a series of videos challenging God's existence, in essence preaching to a largely stupor-addled and torpid crowd. In response, a police officer in Virginia responds in kind, in essence preaching to a largely self-righteous and placid in the face of logic crowd. Boooring.

Ratpure Alert: http://www.rapturealert.com. The police officer mentioned above is "sounding the alert that Jesus Christ is coming soon." Reminds me of a bumper sticker my neighbor had: "If the Rapture is coming, somebody grab my steering wheel!" (No rapture, but he did have to move when he couldn't pay his rent.)

The Half Hour News Hour: http://youtube.com/watch?v=YjIfaMwIFxU. Described as a "Daily Show for Conservatives," which means they've already lost the battle. They have to borrow from the enemy. Reviews have universally panned the show, and Variety points out, rightfully, that the left-leaning media bashes whoever's in the White House, left or right.

Dudeism: http://www.dudeism.com. Via Tso (who else?). Tso, get back to work.

The idiots are filming themselves! Come see the idiots!

The world is going to hell.

Virginia Heff, in her NY Times blog Screens, profiles LonelyGirl15, a homeschooled teen who passes all the time she's stuck in her bedroom because of domineering parents, making short autobiographical/philosophical video posts (called vlogs, I guess) for the world to see. She just sparked controversy over a tiff between her and her producer/boyfriend danielbeast. Her parents won't let her go hiking. No, wait, her parents do let her go hiking. And so on.

I still remember when blogs were all the controversy: "What, now semiliterate idiots can vomit their meaningless opinions all over the Web?" "What, the vacuum of cyberspace is now filled with musings about how annoying it is when someone eats all the chocolate out of the Neopolitan ice cream?" Meaningless tripe, all of it. I should know. Just look at this page, for god's sake.

Well, I guess the joke's on me--now we don't even need to be sub-sub literate. We can post videos instead.

I'm not particularly talking about Heff's primary subject. Lonelygirl knows enough about lighting and editing to avoid visual incoherence, and although there's only so much depth you can squeeze out of a lazy eye, it does function as a metaphor quite nicely.

But then I made the mistake of looking at some of the responses she got, ranging from the rambling to the snooty to the downright nasty. Look out, web talent scouts. Got your hands full here. Yowza.

Web videos sound great until you start wading through them. It's enough to make me long for the days of scrolls and quill pens. If all this is the stuff replacing books and films that require a few neurons firing, I don't want to be around when they put together 3-D filming techniques. Watching some frat bozo drink beer through a watering can from all possible angles of his living room would just be too depressing.

And the comments. Need I get into the comments? They outweigh the posts by pages, and the videos by hours. And who cares anyway?

For example, Rupert Brooke was born on this day, in 1887. If his "The Solider" had had a comment function when first published? "Hey, uh, Rupe, if that's your real name, I just want to say, like, your poem sucks? Um, I liked the extended metaphor of the soil as homeland and everything, but like, you could have said something about American involvement. We totally saved your asses. Wilson for Winners in '16!"

In my own effort to contribute to the Web's detritus, let me pose what the volume of empty-headedness of 75% of youtube's content says about the direction of our media culture? That it's easier and easier to find your own voice because of the ease of access to all these nifty tools? Or that it's going to be harder for anyone to be heard fighting against the cacophony of crap cluttering up the bandwidth anymore?

The world is, like, so going to hell.

Well, maybe I'll be proven wrong. I doubt it--I rarely am. But maybe video publishing will unearth a new generation of thought-provoking, challenging media for the world to consume. Of course it will, because I am so getting a vid camera! With an appropriately shaded nook in my classroom and enough interesting lesson plans, I could...get myself fired.

Just realized, folks--before I noticed, I'd spent forty minutes looking at a bunch of posts about a teen girl on camera. All because of a NY Times article. Which won't do me any good. Thanks to our beloved president and the Patriot Act, right now my ISP is on record at having drooled over adolescent video blogs. Send me cigarettes when they send me to the Pen.

Free Josh Wolf!!!

This is the first time the government has gone after a blogger's sources officially. Obviously, they'll be after me next.

And a federal appeals court just ruled that the government can look at journalists' phone records. This creates an alarming precedent, unless, of course, we can trust the government to use this precedent to go after genuine threats to security, rather than the muckraking that has unearthed so many bureaucratic ills. Obviously, they'll be going after Janice Effington, of 1034 S. Halsted, Apartment 2D. (She knows why.)

Daily Show clips, courtesy of Lisa Rein's radar. Might very well come in handy some day, when you're bored in study hall and want to make it look like you're working.

Some journalism instructor I am. Today's top story all over the Fourth Estate: Deep Throat is finally revealed, and I tell everyone not to think about it right now, we've got a really important test to take. Hearst would throttle me alive.

Don't bother looking to me for links and what not: just pick up any newspaper in the country. The news is out: FBI Agent Mark Felt, who denied numerous times that he was Deep Throat (once even in his memoirs, published in 1978), was the cigarette-smoking guy in the underground parking garage.

The Tribune's lead: The world's most famous anonymous news source outed himself Tuesday.

The New York Times: Deep Throat, the mystery man who reigned as Washington's best-kept secret source for more than 30 years, was not just any shadowy, cigarette-smoking tipster in a raincoat. He was the No. 2 official of the F.B.I., W. Mark Felt, who helped The Washington Post unravel the Watergate scandal and the presidency of Richard M. Nixon, a feat that he lived to see disclosed on Tuesday, frail but smiling at 91.

From the Washington Post: For three decades, former FBI official W. Mark Felt lived with one of the greatest secrets in journalism history.

And from my afternoon class: "Everyone put away those newspapers and take out a Number Two pencil. These scan trons aren't going to finish themselves, people."

Just great. Now, when Felt does die (Woodward's stipulation for giving up his identity), he'll haunt me but good.

Ben Bradlee on the Post's confirmation of DT's identity

One night at layout...

Student: Mr. L, you sound just like my dad.
Me: How's that?
Student: He and I were looking at college application materials, and I was trying to be cute, telling him he really didn't want me to leave the house and everything. And he said he wanted to be proud of me, only he'd be proud of me more if I were in another state.
Me: Ah. A sage, witty man.
Student: You do that too. You say the meanest things with a completely straight face. Like "Oh, Lisa is such a good student, as long as she's not in the room yakking on her cell phone to her stupid boyfriend and using the word "like" all the time, like the idiot she really is.
Me: Hey, I never said you were a good student.

(I was told to blog about that comment. Just following orders.)