Archive for August, 2008
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Want TV Listings? Do It Yourself, Times TellsReaders
August 27, 2008
The LA Times recently encouraged readers of the print edition to &;Print your own TV TImes with a simple click. Go to latimes.com/tvtimes and print out a week of TV grids.&;
Sounds just like the old TV Times magazine in the Sunday newspaper, that people like my mother, who&;s not on the Internet, still miss. But as newspapers cut off their own fingers and toes in a twisted effort to survive, they push the printing of a week of TV programming onto the readers.
But if I have to print out my own TV listings, why do I need to go to the Times website at all?
Tags:death-of-newspapers, Television Posted in Journalism, Television | 4 Comments &;
Bigfoot a Hoax:Shocker
August 19, 2008
Shocking news: Bigfoot is half-man, half-ape and 100% hoax. What&;s really shocking is that even in the &;dog days&; of summer, the media paid attention to a pathetic publicity stunt involving a frozen Halloween costume.
And what&;s sad is that the media runs with BS like this, absolutely abdicating its responsibility to report on the wars, the economy, the housing crisis, police corruption and other real issues.
Tags:Bigfoot, death-of-journalism, hoaxes, publicity-stunts Posted in Journalism, public-relations-disaster | 1 Comment &;
CNN&;s Jack Cafferty Blasts Bush,McCain
August 19, 2008
Didn&;t know he had it in him; Jack Cafferty just took aim at John McCain on his blog, particularly his lack of curiosity about the world. Cafferty, who is 66, doesn&;t have to worry about his perceived lack of objectivity, now that&;s he&;s more of a commentator than a straight CNN talking head, but it is interesting to see him joining Lou Dobbs, Anderson Cooper and others with his viewpoint&;not just reading the news.
Fiery quote:
I am sick and tired of the president of the United States embarrassing me. The world we live in is too complex to entrust it to someone else whose idea of intellectual curiosity and grasp of foreign policy issues is to tell us he can look into Vladimir Putin&;s eyes and see into his soul.
George Bush&;s record as a student, military man, businessman and leader of the free world is one of constant failure. And the part that troubles me most is he seems content with himself.
He will leave office with the country $10 trillion in debt, fighting two wars, our international reputation in shambles, our government cloaked in secrecy and suspicion that his entire presidency has been a litany of broken laws and promises, our citizens&; faith in our own country ripped to shreds. Yet Bush goes bumbling along, grinning and spewing moronic one-liners, as though nobody understands what a colossal failure he has been.
I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him.
Tags:Anderson-Cooper, CNN, George-Bush, Jack-Cafferty, John-McCain, Lou-dobbs Posted in Journalism, Television | Leave a Comment &;
Billy Graham Not Dead, Jewish JournalDecides
August 15, 2008
Without giving credit to us, the Jewish Journal fixed their web story where they had the advanced, untrue news of Billy Graham&;s death.
But in their haste to fix the story, they added a subhead on: &;Rev. Wick Warren&;s speech at Sinai Temple.&; Jeez, the guy&;s name is Rick Warren, he&;s sold ten forty million books. Sloppy&;
Tags:death-of-journalism, death-of-newspapers Posted in Journalism, Publishing | 1 Comment &;
Disney&;s Snow White, Robin HoodArrested
August 15, 2008
By dressing young protestors as Snow White, Robin Hood and Mickey Mouse, whoever stage-managed yesterday&;s demonstration for health care for Disneyland Hotel maids and cooks (the 15th this year) deserves a lot of credit for the worldwide publicity.
Tags:Disney, Disneyland, public-relations-disaster, publicity-stunt Posted in Public Relations, publicity-stunts | Leave a Comment &;
John Edwards FarceContinues
August 15, 2008
With John Edwards absurd half-denial, half-confession, the media, finally freed of all restraint, has taken our tips and is finally digging. It gets uglier and uglier, (Rielle Hunter&;s father apparently specialized in horse electrocution for dollars) especially if you were an Edwards supporter.
On the bright side, Inside Edition finally found a hot photo of Rielle.
Tags:horse-electrocution, John-Edwards-lovechild, Rielle-Hunter Posted in Journalism, public-relations-disaster | Leave a Comment &;
Billy Graham Not DeadYet
August 15, 2008
In an otherwise outstanding essay on the Rev. Rick Warren of Saddleback Church (where Obama and McCain will speak this weekend) by Jewish Journal Editor Rob Eshman, there is this egregious error; &;But Warren is different. In one sense, he recalls the late Rev. Billy Graham, who self-consciously sought to serve as &;America&;s Pastor.&;
Billy Graham is still alive, (if not particularly well) last time I checked. Seems that as news pubs dwindle downwards, the first to go are the fact-checkers and copy editors, some kind of corollary to &;truth is the first casualty.&;
Tags:Billy-Graham, death-of-journalism, death-of-newspapers, fact-checking, Jewish-Journal, Rick-Warren Posted in Journalism | 4 Comments &;
Unabomber to Museum: Expect aPackage
August 13, 2008
The Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, is apparently alive, well in his Florence, CO, digs, and ticked off that his Montana cabin is part of an exhibit glorifying the FBI, at, of all places, the Newseum in Washington, DC, a museum focused on the contributions of American journalism.
How much does the exhibit &;G-Men and Journalists: Top News Stories of the FBI&;s First Century,&; cover the FBI&;s utterly incompetent handling of the anthrax murders (resulting in a $5.8 million settlement to one scientist and the suicide of another &;suspect&;), its hounding of innocent Atlanta Olympics bomber suspect Richard Jewell, its failure to stop the 19 (!) suicide terrorists of 9/11 or its continuing hunt for ransom hijacker D.B. Cooper&;37 years and counting?
My guess is not so much, after reading that &;The section about Kaczynski, called &;A Mad Bomber and His Manifesto&; &;details how the FBI used 500 agents over 17 years to search for him.&; Kaczynski was only caught after his brother read his manifesto and turned him in.
Since I&;m sure the exhibit celebrates the crime-fighting years of G. Edgar Hoover&;s FBI, perhaps they can borrow John Dillinger&;s penis from the Smithsonian and add it to the exhibit&;s 200 artifacts.
Tags:death-of-journalism, FBI-incompetence, John-Dillinger-penis, Mad-Bomber, Newseum, Ted-Kaczynski Posted in Journalism, public-relations-disaster | Leave a Comment &;
An LA Encounter with theT1000
August 12, 2008
Some say every conversation in LA ends with a celebrity. Here&;s mine. Took my son to see Batman today at the Sherman Oaks Galleria,. We were admiring the collection of movie posters when a figure off a movie poster strolled past.
&;Hey, are you Robert Patrick!&; I told my son, &;That&;s the guy who was the T1000 in Terminator II!&; (which might just be my favorite LA movie of all time.)
He was as friendly as could be; &;What&;s your name, son?&; he said to my boy.
In my head, I could hear echoes of the T1000 asking John Connor&;s foster parents a similar question&;before he sliced them to death.
The &;T-1000&;, played by Robert Patrick.
Tags:LA-celebrity-encounters, Robert-Patrick, T1000, Terminator Posted in LAPD, Los-Angeles, SciFi, Terminator-II | Leave a Comment &;
Space Travel Dangerous Even If You&;reDead
August 11, 2008
The LA Weekly is running my story on the new private space race, a battle between billionaires like Elon Muske (SpaceX), Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and of course Richard Branson (Virgin everything.) Bill Gates is more focused on curing malaria around the world.
One of my points in the story is what would happen if private space travel had the same safe flight rate as NASA&;s space shuttle program. The shuttle has suffered two cataclysmic crashes in 123 flights despite NASA&;s spending $150 billion of our money. &;If the 18,000 monthly aircraft departures from LAX suffered from the same 98.4% arrival rate experienced by the Shuttle, a staggering 288 airliners a month would crash.&;
Space travel is hazardous&;even if you&;re already dead. The ashes of James Doohan (Scotty on Star Trek), fun-loving astronaut Gordon Cooper and 200 other people were destroyed last week, rather than achieving space orbit, when a SpaceX rocket crashed on takeoff.
Doohan&;s son wrote, &;While there are many complicated reasons why this is a disappointment, mine is simple: I&;d like to finish saying goodbye. Every launch attempt is like reliving his funeral. There’s a lot of pomp and ceremony, and a retelling of his deeds in life. But at the end of these funerals, something goes awry, the body doesn&;t get buried, and you know you&;re going to have to come back to do it over again.&;
Tags:bill-gates, James-Doohan, Jeff-Bezos, LA-Weekly, Michael-Goldstein, NASA, private-space, Richard-Branson, space-shuttle, SpaceX, StarTrek Posted in public-relations-disaster, Space, Television, Tribbles | 2 Comments &;
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