3-15-06

Digression:  A really good day (sort of)
Three great things happened today and one kinda crappy one happened yesterday and today.  The great things first.  Robert Howard of Tangents gave me a really great notice in his Secants section.  My daughter called me wise, and not just to my face, she called me wise in a paper for her school and then quoted me...I'm all verklempt...  Thirdly I won 12 bucks on a $2 scratch-off (for a net profit of $10).
          The not-so-hot thing is that my grandnephew Joshua had to go into surgery today to deal with some sort of brain thing that I don't fully understand.  If prayer is your thing it'd be great if you swung some to Joshua Sponseller who could use it about now.

New Media Part 3:  Reading the Paper
Remember 7th grade English (maybe it was Social Studies) when you were taught that the best way to read the paper was to scan the front page and read the first three to five paragraphs of each story?  Well, bag that.  For one thing, every reporter and editor out there had the same class, so they're going to pack any agenda they have into those first 3-5 paragraphs, only they'll have it hidden as news.  It's possible that they don't know they're doing it.  The front five, while trying very hard to answer the 4 important Ws (Who What When and Where) are load with action verbs and strong aggressive sentences that strike you viscerally.
          That's the second reason not to look at the front page at all.  That page only exists to sell newspapers.  If anything there is important, it's been so dressed up in actionspeak that it is no longer news so much as an advert for why you should read the paper.  Jump back to the "City & State" section first.
          Why?  Because all the news that really matters to you will be there, and it will be there before it is anywhere else.  Most of the laws and ordinances that govern are lives occur on the state and local level, not the national level.  If they ever get to the national level for any reason it's because we let it get too far.  Kelo v New London would not have made it to the Supreme Court had the residents of Fort Trumbull been reading the City Section of their paper with an eye toward anything funky going on in City Council.  You won't read about city council on the front page unless they do something mindbogglingly stupid like allowing their subordinates to give themselves $300,000 in bonuses.  You have to turn to the City page.  Usually the front five paragraphs will give you the information you need there, if only because most city journalists are the rookies on the paper.  The only news assignment lower than sitting in on city council and commissioners court meetings is the high school sports desk, and at least they get to watch baseball (okay, high school baseball, but it's got to be more fun than a three-hour debate over the possible impact of rezoning section 354-b from L-1 commercial to R2 multiuse residential).
         Don't expect any news from a story that begins with a short biography of one of the subjects.  This story will be almost entirely schmaltz, with maybe a bit of agenda mixed in.  You don't need to know that life story of Wilhelmina Dery to know that her city condemning her perfectly nice home is a violation of her civil rights.  All you need to know is that New London intended the land her home sat on for "support acreage" for a planned city park for a planned city improvement.  Any story that begins with her life and the fact that she was born in her 100-year-old house would only serve to establish a visceral response and not supply valid information at all.
          Ignore all polls and statistics.  Seriously.  Unless you have access to the root numbers, the statistics and polling numbers will only tell you what they want you to believe.
          Read editorials.  The funny thing is, if you really like solid verifiable information, your best bet is the editorial page.  Most editorial writers still stick to good old APA form in their argumentative prose.  That means plenty of imbedded references to back up their assertions.
          Whenever you read anything, anywhere, remember to have a good block-sized grain of salt, handy.  And remember Occam's razor.
Next Week:  What is this "New" Media?