Daily Archives: September 26, 2018

If You Want to Make America Great Again, Have Media Outlets Stop Using Tweets As Actual Stories

News, Politics, Social Networking, , , ,

I don’t even think people realize the problem that exists today with media. It’s not that media is wrong, false or lying. It’s that it’s lazy. And yeah, I know a big reason behind it is the consolidation of media outlets to get rid of people and save money. So, the problem has emerged to the next logical step: Find media anywhere you can get it.

And tweets is where they’ve found it. Because, let’s face it: It’s easy, it’s free, and it requires absolutely no work to put together a story that consists of someone’s response on Twitter.

But let’s also face the fact that it’s not actually a story. It’s a reaction from someone to something. And most likely, it’s irrelevant to practically everything.

Let’s take the Tweeter-in-Chief that gets quoted on Twitter the most. Instead of paying attention to actual policies the president is enacting or proposing, we get knee-jerk reactions from him at 3am in the morning when he’s just watched Fox & Friends and wants to let the world know that we must stop illegal aliens from stealing the world’s toilet tissue. or whatever stupid idea the bottom of the barrel commentators on that show have proposed at whatever time they actually air.

But the media eats this stuff up and actually reports it as a legitimate news story.

When news is dull or boring, we suddenly start to see “news” whenever one of the Kardassians picks a fight on Twitter with Taylor Swift, or whatever other shenanigans occur during that news cycle. The “famous for being famous” celebrities plan these stories for maximum coverage, and our media, realizing they don’t have anywhere near the amount of coverage to fill a 24 hour news cycle, eats it right up, and suddenly a turf war between two aging rappers ends up being a leading story. So, instead of reporting on something legitimate, or important, like anything written by Nicholas Kristof, or Rebecca Solnit, we get nonstop nonsense about the Kardassian sisters or “news” about toddlers in beauty pageants.

This morning, I woke up to read a “news” story about a Tweet from the president saying how much he believes that….

Not a story. It’s a moment of thought about something that is not a story. A story would be something actually happened. Legislation got passed, someone died, someone was arrested, an accuser was heard and listened to, a country declared war against another, a country attacked another, etc. Someone’s thoughts on something, especially something that came as a reaction to hearing an actual news story IS NOT NEWS.

So please. Stop passing drivel off as news.

And people, stop listening to it. When you hear it, turn it off because you didn’t get news. And better, contact the news agency and complain. Otherwise, it’s ALL you’re ever going to see and hear.

Just saying. I’ll tweet it for you, if it might cause you to think of it as real news.

Kavanaugh, Boys Will Be Boys, and Why This Problem Will Never Go Away

News, Politics, Relationships, Social Networking, , , , , , , ,
I was watching Vice News Tonight, and they were covering some of the Kavanaugh garbage that we’re seeing on a daily basis right now, and it just sickens me that we have a bunch of men in charge of our government who apparently don’t care one iota that they’re about to empower (with enormous power and responsibility) someone who may have tried to rape another woman. And even more allegations are starting to emerge. And they’re trying to railroad him into the position so fast that NO OTHER WOMAN can possibly come forward in time to stop it.
 
One thing that was interesting was that they brought on a woman who was literally halted from testifying during the Anita Hill hearings for Clarence Thomas who ALSO had a sexual harassment story about Clarence Thomas, but she was shunted away by the people who wanted him put into power until the hearings were over. They made sure that atrocity happened, and THOSE SAME PEOPLE ARE STILL IN POWER TODAY. They’re the same people trying to push through the current guy.
 
But you know what really got me? At the end of the whole segment, four or five other women were giving their own stories of when men attacked them sexually but they were also never believed when these things happened. And it got me to thinking: How many of these types of guys have I known my entire life? The cool guy in high school. The jock in college. That guy who got all the girls. And now the weird guy who no woman ever talked to but is now in an office establishment with all sorts of other women who are forced to be around him all day long. So many people, and so many stories, which could mean this happens all the time.
 
Because that’s what I’m getting from all of these stories. These incidents aren’t rare. They’re more the norm. And if you are brave enough to hold a conversation with a group of women and just let them start talking about it, what you’ll discover is that almost ALL of them have a similar story of when this happened to them. Not one or two out of a room of 50. But 49 or 50 of them all have a horrifying story of some guy that violated them in some way.
 
And this is what we should be facing.
 
But we won’t. We’ll shuffle it under the rug, pretend it only happens with really bad people who, oh I don’t know, must not go to church or something equally ridiculous. And it will continue happening because we choose to let it happen.
 
Like people shooting up schools with guns. Because we choose to let it happen.
 
We’re all responsible, but we will blame a boogeyman who doesn’t exist, or just might exist. But we’re all responsible. And we’re responsible because we don’t do anything about it but act shocked and surprised.
 
Right now. Instead of doing something about this, the people who CAN do something are saying: “This is just a political witch hunt. Get him in the office and the problem goes away.”
 
And that’s what’s probably going to happen.
 
Or, we’ll get brave this one time (honestly, I don’t believe that will happen), but we’ll do nothing about the larger problem because it’s too hard. It takes too much work. We can never solve this. Or whatever weak excuse we will give, including my favorite: “It’s not me, so I don’t see what trying to stop it will do because there’s no way to tell who is responsible.”
 
I already told you. WE are responsible.
 
And WE will do absolutely nothing.
 
Now, I’m going to go back to killing aliens in a video game because at least there the world makes a lot more sense.