CommenTerry

Hold the Attitude, Please!

What is it with all these sports commentators with an attitude in the last few years? Once upon a time, they just reported the scores along with some details of what happened on the diamonds, fields, courts, etc. Now they feel the need to give us a song and dance with every score as well as their opinions of everything that goes on in the world of sports. I liked the old days better. Sometimes I just want to scream out at the beginning of these sports shows, "No, I don't want any attitude with that!"

Pitts Made a Common "Mistake"

In a recent column, Leonard Pitts had the following to say about Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Peter Pace's remarks regarding homosexual acts:

"I have never understood how a people -- meaning individuals bonded by some racial, sexual, religious or geographical commonality -- can be immoral. Is it immoral to be Jewish? Immoral to be male? Is it immoral to hail from Idaho? How, then, can it be immoral to be gay?"

Pitts made the same (possibly intentional) "mistake" that so many others in the media -- who reacted in a knee-jerk fashion to General Pace's comments with accusations of bigotry and homophobia -- did. They should all read what Pace actually said -- not their biased distortion of what he said. General Pace did not say that it was immoral to be gay.

Obviously, it is not immoral to be gay any more than it is to be (to use Pitts' examples) Jewish or male. Common sense should tell us that the condition of being anything cannot be immoral. General Pace was addressing homosexual acts. Which part of his words do Pitts and other media personalities not understand?

It is not immoral to be kleptomaniac, but it is immoral to steal. It is not immoral to be an alcoholic, but it is immoral to purposely give in to one's weakness for alcohol and subsequently overindulge. The same principle applies to homosexual behavior. Only now the affliction of political correctness has infected the mainstream media and deceived it into believing otherwise.

By the way, another mistake Pitts and others of his ilk commonly make is to believe that the Old Testament is only part of the Bible that condemns homosexual behavior. If they would actually bother to read the New Testament once in a while, they would see that it, too, condemns homosexual acts. If they're going to ignore that part of the New Testament, then they should be honest and throw the whole thing out while they're at it.

And why don't they also be honest enough to demand that General Pace apologize to adulterers as well? That way, he could address his entire "bigotry" problem all at once.

Does the Year End at Christmas?

This year, pay close attention to the media during the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. If you do, you might actually be convinced that the year ended on Christmas Day. Each year, during this time, they act as if the year has already ended. That's when they typically start running their year-end reviews and listing the top stories of the "year that was."

However, I believe they should wait until the year is actually over before running such retrospectives. If nothing else, they should wait for the sake of accuracy. It's quite possible that one or more of the year's top stories could occur between December 26 and 31. The "big one" could hit California, another war could get started, a major world leader could be assassinated, etc. Wouldn't stories like those be among the top stories of any given year? I should think so. When such events happen in the last week of a year, after a media outlet has already announced its top stories of that year, how does it handle that situation? Does it tack that story on to the top stories of the following year (which would be factually inaccurate) or modify the current year's list of top stories and recant the list it originally aired? That's a dilemma the media should never create for itself.

The Art of Making Mountains out of Mole Hills

The elitist media long ago mastered the art of making mountains out of mole hills. A partial list of the trivialities they've wasted their ink on during the last four decades include: Ed Muskie's "crying" in New Hampshire, Gerald Ford's clumsiness, Michael Dukakis' lack of emotion, Dan Quayle's misspelling of potato, Bill and Hillary Clinton's Whitewater non-scandal, Howard Dean's "scream," Martha Stewart's lying to federal officials about insider trading, and Vice President Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of a fellow hunter.

To all of these things, I say, "Big deal!" They are just distractions from the truly important issues of the day, such as terrorism, rogue nations acquiring (or attempting to acquire) nuclear weapons, the economy, taxes, and school violence. But don't count on our friends in the media to give up their addiction to meaningless stories any time soon. My guess is that they will continue to milk them for all they're not worth.

Helen Thomas Shows Her True Colors

At a recent speaking engagement in Richmond, Virginia, veteran journalist Helen Thomas showed her true colors. As Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter Bob Rayner has documented, Ms. Thomas vehemently denied that there is any "liberal bias" in the mainstream media. However, she tossed out any credibility she might have had when she "urged Democrats to resist pressure to move to the middle." Instead, she obviously wants them to stick to their guns and use their newly-won power to pursue their liberal agenda. Thomas is not a media exception -- she's the rule.

In addition, she took a cheap shot at bloggers by implying that they all wrongly believe they are journalists. Well, I can't speak for other bloggers, but this blogger does not think he's a journalist. I use my blog to document my thoughts and opinions and to share them, along with some of my accrued knowledge, with the rest of the world. I do not try to report news, investigate anything, or do any kind of research. I've never had any desire to be a journalist. In fact, I'd rather clean bed pans at a nursing home for living!  Ms. Thomas should think before she starts stereotyping all bloggers.

Back Pattin' and Horn Tootin'

Local TV newscasters make a common practice of patting themselves on the back and tooting their own horn. For example, they might open a broadcast with the following: "In a story that was reported first on this channel, ..."  It's gotten to the point of becoming sickening. Station news managers should forbid this practice. Besides, who cares what channel a given story was reported on first? The important thing is to get it the story right, even if that means being the last to report it.

Media Lemmings Continue to Be Driven by Ratings

Except for a few special features and human interest stories, why are the evening news programs on the broadcast TV networks pretty much identical in content? With thousands of possible news stories every day, why do the 24-hour cable news channels like CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC tend to follow the same 20-25 stories and ignore the rest? Why do they all latch on to the same missing person case when there are probably scores of people reported missing at any given time? Of course, the answer to all of the preceding questions is ratings.

Unfortunately, TV news departments and channels are judged by the same barometer as entertainment departments and channels. That's why, into the foreseeable future, we will continue get only the TV news that its providers believe will hold our interest, regardless of its importance (or lack thereof).

How About Some Common Sense in the Media?

My local newspaper recently ran a story about the settlement of a five million dollar defamation suit brought by a male college student against a female student who attended the same college. The young lady had accused the young man of rape. Those charges turned out to be false, and therefore the lawsuit was brought.

Even though the young lady made a de facto admission of guilt by agreeing to the terms of the settlement, that newspaper would still not disclose her name, even though it continued to disclose the name of the young man who was falsely accused. How much sense does that make? It's totally ridiculous as well as unfair. I understand the need to protect the identities of those who make rape allegations. However, once an allegation like that is proved false, that protection should no longer apply. The alleged victim has forfeited her right to any such protection.

Now, here's a novel idea. When charges of rape are brought, the media should withhold the identities of both the alleged victim and the alleged rapist until due process has a chance to run its course. If the accused rapist is found guilty, his identity should be revealed. If he is found not guilty, both identities should be kept secret. However, if the alleged victim's accusation is somehow proved false (a verdict of not guilty for the accused is not sufficient), her identity should no longer be withheld. But that just makes too much sense, doesn't it?

   

Media Hypocrisy Strikes Again

The board of trustees at Randolph-Macon Women's College in Lynchburg, Virginia recently voted 25-2 in favor of admitting men. This vote was met with protests by various students, alumnae, and women's education advocates. However, the school had no choice, as it was an economic decision on which its very survival depended. Attendance was dropping because fewer women (or men) are interested in a single-sex college education. That's just the reality of the matter.

As far as I know, there was no effort on the part of anyone in the media to make the protesters feel ashamed. In fact, many members of the media appeared to sympathize with them. Now, had they been men protesting the fact that their once all-male institution were going coed, we would have heard the typical accusations of chauvinism, bigotry, childishness, and denial of opportunity. But that's the thing about political correctness. It's a one-way street.   

Tuning in to the Evening "Olds"

Hasn't everyone noticed that the price of gasoline is starting to go down again? Probably everyone except members of the news media. Where I live, gas prices have gone down about 14 cents in the last 10 days!  However, I'll bet you haven't anyone in the news media mention it yet. That's because they always seem to be behind on certain issues. In another two weeks or so, possibly after gasoline prices have begun to go up again, they will breathlessly announce that "gas prices are going down again!"

Yep, we can always count on our media buddies to consistently bring us some "olds" along with the actual news. It reminds of the times during my teen years when I would get large pimple on my face. No one would mention it until it had just about gone away. Then I could always count on someone to say, "Hey, do you know there's a big zit on your face?" I bet some of those people majored in journalism when they went to college!