Written Pyramids

I am sure that there are insightful things to say about the coverage of Anthony Weiner's sex scandal.

For example, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart both raised questions in the last couple of days about the role of comedian vs. journalist when they bemoaned the fact that photos of Weiner's weiner makes for comedic gold but that they are friends with Weiner. They make no secret of the fact that they are both liberal comedians, but I found both comedians willingness to talk about their hestinancy to make fun of this prominent democratic congressman (even as they did make fun of him) interesting, particularly for Stewart who sometimes does journalists' jobs when he looks at what (usually Republican) politicians have said in the past compared to what they are saying now.


But that's not what I want to talk about.

What I want to say is this:

The New York Times' liveblog of Weiner's press conference ran with a particularly apropos ad on the top of the page


Do you think it's too late for Weiner to improve his online reputation? I think so.

I'm not really a broadcast news kind of person; I read the newspaper--some on print and some online-- and I listen to NPR. But every once and a while I end up watching the 11 o'clock local news. One of those once-in-a-whiles was the night before the nuclear summit. 

I was watching a television show, and the teasers for  the news kept repeating "How will road closings for the nuclear summit affect your morning commute? Find out at 11."

"Excellent," I thought, as I listened to a stream of motorcades go past the window, "I would love to know if it will affect my morning commute."

So, I stayed by the television to find out. I didn't even get a map of road closures. I got man on the street interviews with person after person who got to tell the television audience how they thought the road closures would affect their own personal commutes.

 First of all, viewers were not informed of where these random people lived or worked so there was no way to draw connections from their experiences to my own. Second of all, these interviews were not live; they were filmed before the road closures began, so the men and women being interviewed were guessing. Hello random person I don't know why YES I want to know whether you think it's annoying that the roads are closed. Oh, wait. I don't. I certainly don't want your inexpert opinions on whether the road closures are necessary in place of actual information about what the road closures are and how they will affect my morning.

In the end, I logged onto WPost.com and found a map there.

Anyway, this is all old news. I had actually forgotten about this particular annoyance until I came across this xkcd comic:

News networks giving a greater voice to viewers because the social web is so popular are like a chef on the Titanic who,  seeing the looming iceberg and fleeing customers, figures ice is the future and starts making snow cones. 

Comparing any news source to the Titanic makes me gloomy, but I certainly agree with the sentiment.

Bonus: Here is an interview with  a guy who  basically makes it his job to get quoted as a man-on-the-street as often as possible.  Most recently, he was first in line to get the iPad, and all sorts of news outlets and blogs dutifully reported it, though many have caught on to his antics. Back in 2003, the AP warned reporters about quoting him.

There are a lot of things to complain about with Glee. The music is great, but the plots can be sloppy bordering on offensive. 

I seem to be more or less on my own in my level of discomfort in the blackmail plot with Sue and the principal, but catching a Shakespeare reference in the season finale of Glee did not help much:

"One last chit, Figgy, give the glee club another year, and I won't mention us making the beast with two backs again."

I'm willing to bet that the writers did not know that "the beast with two backs" is from Othello. But I did; I am obsessed with Othello.  My thesis for my BA was titled "'All That Is Spoke Is Marred' – The Transformation of Othello As Seen Through Speech."

So, I knew that "a beast with two backs" is part of a list of racially-charged animal metaphors that Iago uses to describe Desdemona sleeping with Othello. And when I heard it here, in describing what the creators of Glee clearly see as a race as well as infidelity issue, I cringed a little. (Emphasis mine).

IAGO
'Zounds, sir, you're robb'd; for shame, put on
your gown;
Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is topping your white ewe. Arise, arise;
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,
Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you:
Arise, I say....

BRABANTIO
What tell'st thou me of robbing? this is Venice;
My house is not a grange....

IAGO
'Zounds, sir, you are one of those that will not
serve God, if the devil bid you. Because we come to
do you service and you think we are ruffians, you'll
have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse;
you'll have your nephews neigh to you; you'll have
coursers for cousins and gennets for germans.

BRABANTIO
What profane wretch art thou?

IAGO
I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter
and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.

It should be noted that this dialogue also produces an exchange that should be printed on DC Shakespeare shirts:

BRABANTIO
Thou art a villain.

IAGO
You are--a senator.

O.K. I get that Glee is making fun of stereotypes and the cliques of high school. There is also some making fun of the "let's break out into song" genre, although the Glee numbers all come across as pretty earnest. AND I get that Sue Sylvester is over-the-top evil incarnate.

NOTE: I found this saved as a draft in the inner workings of my blogger. I have since freaked out at Gilmore Girls more than once, including reliving my own rejection from an internship I had really wanted, before going on to be annoyed at Rory for assuming she would actually get the Times internship. But my original reaction to the portrayal of the YDN, still stands, so I edited a little and am posting it.

I should have been clued in when Rory said "You have to write something for every department, and then if those pass muster, then you're on staff." The word "department" should have raised flags for me, but no. Instead of yelling "section! Section! even at the YDN they must be called sections," I wondered, "hmmm. Do they really make their new staff do that? And then my mind drifted into thoughts about the pros and cons of making new staff copy edit for a night.
I needed another reminder that Gilmore Girls, complete wit hits portrayal of the YDN is fiction.
And then the reminders came. Quickly and obviously.

How the YDN cannot possibly be like it is portrayed in real life. Let me count the ways:

1. The YDN seems to be in an academic building in Yale. OK. I can deal with a T.V. show not wanting to understand the intricacies of independence for a college paper. But..
2. The office is FULL of people IN THE MORNING. That makes no sense. This is a college paper we are talking about.
3. Oh, it gets worse. Doyle, who is an editor of some importance, makes Rory write two drafts of a review before telling her the reason he doesn't run them is because she has failed to actually review the piece. Sure, college papers are mean and thoughtless, but yeesh.
4. Doyle takes Rory's hard copy of her rejected review and yells "Stan, file this for me." Sure, there are some things that college papers like to keep around in hard copy. The interest sheet of the over eager freshman who became EIC and then a staff reporter at Newsweek, the printouts of the law case against the CIA. But a rejected article? And who is this Stan who does Doyle's bidding? Why didn't my college papers have Stans?
5. Later Rory brings a hard copy, again in the morning, again to an office with a conspicuous lack of computers, and Doyle decides he likes it. So he waves the pieces of paper around and Doyle beckons Stan again and says "get this to layout" before saying "I love doing that" to which Rory responds "And you look good doing it." AHHH. What on earth is layout doing at a college paper when it is light outside? And why oh why would you subject layout to typing up the review again, when there is such things as e-mail, computers, and workflow systems? Who knows?
   

But it might have something to do with the fact that Doyle, seems to be the only editor. Eyes rolled many a times over, and I will not write about Gilmore Girls again.

I hate watching Gilmore Girls scenes that take place at the Yale Daily News. They somehow always make me stressed, maybe because my suspension of disbelief flies out the window. Sure, I liked when they made all the freshman wear hats and serve the senior editors. But that's about it.

Ok. Just needed to get that off my chest.

I have taken to watching massive amounts of Gilmore Girls lately. It is my guilty pleasure (O.K. One of my guilty pleasures. Another one is reading the comics before the front page).

I really like the show. But the newspaper stuff kills me. I'm only on the second season, but I know that later on Rory does all sorts of impossible things like turn down an internship at a good paper because she is sure she is going to get one at the NYTimes, stage a sit in to get an internship, become EIC of the Yale Daily News through a coup, and most ridiculously, cover Obama straight out of college.

In high school, the newspaper stuff is slightly more laughable because the characters are meant to be mocked:

PARIS: The Oppenheimer Award for Excellence in school journalism is not a contest. It's a statement. It says you're the best. The best writers, the best reporters, the best editors. It says that you have crushed all others who have dared to take you on. It says that every other single school in the United States of America is feeling nothing but shame and defeat and pain because of the people who won the Oppenheimer plaque. I wanna be those people, I wanna cause that pain.
RORY: Our paper is good.
PARIS: Not good enough.
RORY: Last week's issue - .
PARIS: Was a fine effort by a bunch of kids.
MADELINE: We are a bunch of kids.
PARIS: Not when we're in this room, we're not. Flescher Prep Gazette, Broadmouth Banner, Richmond Heights Chronicle - these publications are not our competition.
LOUISE: Geez.
PARIS: The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post - these publications are our competition.

Uh huh. Yeah Paris, a high school paper is really competing with the Times, the Journal, and the Post. Generally, that's not true at all. I don't know of any contest that would be judged on those standards, and I am pretty sure the Times is not in the running for this Oppenheimer plaque.