Media in a Critical Condition [MEDIA CRITIQUE]

I just now stumbled across this article supplied by the NY Daily News. It's an article about how Matthew Hahn, a former Penn State football player, was harassing Rachel Uchitel, his ex wife. He said to her over the phone that she was satan right before she was going to get a brain surgery. That would be all well and good, if it was an article in the entertainment section. But nah, these guys think it's a top story. That goes against one of the main Elements of Journalism, they're making the interesting important rather than the important interesting, like how it should be. I don't care about these people in the article whatsoever, maybe for the lady cause her ex husband is a freakin' jerk, but what I care more about is people getting good news that will affect their lives. This story won't keep you from waking up in the morning, let me tell ya. Tears won't be rolling down your cheeks unless you have severe compassion for everyone, or if you have emotional issues.

http://nydn.us/1Jfqws1

Right above is the link, but I didn't need to tell you that, huh? Well anyway, I hope this was passable, and I don't know about how credible the rest of NY Daily News' stories are, but I know this story went against at least one element, and with journalism you really shouldn't neglect even one element or yardstick.

mnm4jc.blogspot.com

Maya also adds insightful commentary on the subjects that we've learned in class, and extrapolates them further by adding in her own insights and feelings. I share her opinion that being a journalist is a difficult job, cause you could literally be killed in the line of duty, just to get a story or someone's opinion.

ojournalism1.blogspot.com

Olivia provides very thoughtful and insightful, and if I do say so myself, witty commentary on the matters we have discussed so far in class. That's the keyword there, class, cause she's no writing slouch let me tell ya. All her posts are fun to read as well as being beautifully articulated, and so I thought she was deserving enough to get one of my two links.

Magazines and Zines song

Listen up all you muckrakers
all you truthers or fakers
Let me tell you about
An invention that turned the world inside out
First the who, Ben Franklin
We should all really thank him
Now the what, magazines
Invented in the seventeens
1741 to be precise
Accuracy is always nice
It was called General
It's creation was instrumental
In the media of today
Back then the content was pretty okay
Compiled a wide range of subjects
Ranging from the simple to the complex
Every journalist should pay respects
It wasn't one of the usual suspects
Like Entertainment Weekly or The Enquirer
Of that cheap tabloid I'm not an admirer
The New York Times is the mag with the most
But what magazine came first, is the Sat Evening Post
That was published in 1821
Must've been a ton of fun
Magazines encouraged literacy
This was done deliberately
A serial novel chapter was published monthly
Because not to put it bluntly
People back then were not so well read
Oh well, better than being dead
Now, now though, 1879
Thats the day when the industry started to shine
That's when the Postal Act was passed
Oh thank God, at long last
Now magazines could be mailed a cent per pound
That was quite the money saver, people found.

I really enjoyed the lecture on Magazines, and wanted to write a different type of post, i don't know if thats okay to do, but at least its somewhat creative.

World Without Gutenberg, A Sad World Indeed (sort of rhymes a little sometimes)

Imagine a world where 14 year old boys and girls are running around raising their kids, working on farms like slaves from the Civil War times, from the ancient roman times, from the middle eastern countries of today's times. The 14 year old kiddo needs to put bread on the table, but it's hard to find a steady job if you look at writing and nothing's legible. What, is this kid dyslexic? Nah, lemme build this tale a bit more for you: ain't no one can even read, <- and they all talk like this. You were married to someone you didn't even have attraction for, takes all the fun out of love life doesn't it? You married for status, not love, back then love was corporate. Back then you aimlessly followed the church, looked on at the pastor while sitting on pews made out of birch. Told to buy your way outta hell,  it wasn't ringing a bell they could have been lying. Even if you had a bible that you were trying to read, too bad son. It was in Latin. The language of the educated so they say, and you're definitely not that, feel the dismay. All you could do was pray, but wait, common folk weren't supposed to talk to God. That seems pretty odd, but then it seemed pretty painful when you were stoned for it. I'm not talking about marijuana, I'm talking about rocks being thrown. Imagine a world where we still live in the stone ages, centuries behind where we are now, and all books are crudely thrown together or written out by hand. You're still riding horse and buggies, if we even advanced that far yet. If you wanted to text your friends, there'd be weeks between each reply, that's why they called it snail mail. Whoops, you can't write so you can't send mail either. The cold truth sinks in like ether, burning up your soul but the worst part is that people are unaware of their lack of knowledge, going about life blissfully unaware, never bothering with college or even all of elementary school. The hardest thing they know is 2 plus 2, and they have to think for a moment for that doozy of a problem. This might be exaggerated a little, but without Gutenberg we'd be up the creek without a fiddle. Or paddle. Fiddle just rhymed better. :)

Media Making Money, actually an amazing alliteration, A+

Pretty cute title, right? In actuality, there was a LOT more going on in this particular lecture than just media making money. There was pros and cons of conglomeration, monopolization, demassification and shotgun marketing. Woah, seems pretty daunting, but just bear with me. This was a fantastic lecture by the infamous Miller. It was pretty intriguing learn that advertising is more of a populist type thing, while sponsorship is more likely elitist. Probably my favorite part of the lecture was when vertical and horizontal monopolies were discussed. I was completely clueless to the fact at what vertical and horizontal monopolies were. I mean, I'd only heard of a monopoly through the board game. It was cool to find out that a horizontal monopoly is illegal, which is owning all the distributors for example, but its okay to have a vertical, which is to own each part of the process. Now, with shotgun marketing, it's to put a specialty ad in a media that's widespread to many people, some of which will be interested while others won't care at all. Like how Viagra might be advertised on the comic page of a newspaper, even though that section is mostly read by kids and teens, and bored adults who still have a lot of libido, but there still might be those few senior citizens that need it. Probably not that good of an example, but oh well. I love the name "shotgun marketing" too, for some reason.

Types Of Communication

Sometimes it's pretty interesting to think of how people might do something all the time, and it's really simple and takes barely any effort, but it's still a main element of journalism. What I'm referring to is communication. Billions of people talk to each other on a day to day basis, and though it's incredibly simple to us, it was quite a mind bender that words are actually meaningless, but us humans just grouped syllable sets together and related those to objects. At least I felt pretty mind bended, I can't speak for anyone else. Anyway, it was pretty interesting that if one speaker was talking to the whole world of 8 billion people, it was still group communication instead of mass, and if a youtube video that could be viewed all over the world at anytime, even if it has like 1 view, is mass communication. That's one of the great things about YouTube, you have the possibility to reach anyone in the whole world, and if your video has a deep message, you could potentially influence the emotions of someone you don't even know that lives thousands of miles away from you. It was crazy to think that even if someone comments on a video the second it's uploaded, it still isn't immediate feedback. Individual and group communication is the only times where you can see responses in like a millisecond.
I know I'm somewhat late discussing this particular lecture, but you know what they say: Better late than never, right?