:: Bluestarblog ::

:: Monday, June 23, 2003 ::

The reading room has been updated with something for cogsci (Andy Clark's Natural Born Cyborgs), military (The Commander by Fred Barnes), and music (a long Frank Zappa interview) fans.

I've also updated the blogroll - farewell to Dawson and Pandavox, hello to about a dozen others. A few notables - Boing Boing: a site of wonderful things is certainly that. Art, science, technology, and some terrific oddities; and a couple of good philosophy blogs - the aptly named Philosophy Blog and Thoughts Arguments and Rants. I also found some very clever girls in the blogosphere - Rebecca's pocket is a terrific blog with a pile of words and links on books, music, media and culture; Erin O'Connor's blog, Critical Mass, is an unforgiving look into the world of academia - maybe the universities will be next in getting their due public shaming; and Candace, who also comments here, has an excellent mix of politics, music, and culture from her own Seattle scene.

A few non-linkroll goodies too. The Einstein Archive Online is a collection of original manuscripts and writings from the great scientist I found somewhere or other. It's too bad the creators didn't turn the site into a general Einstein research center with the wealth of data already here. Here's a cool site on hand-drawn holograms, some humorous maps of Europe from the mid 1800's, some optical illusions in the form of short flash movies, a pile of logic problems, and that incredible Honda Accord commerical.

On the lighter side, from Zug we have a neat little experiment with credit card signatures - funny as hell! And check out Cockeyed.com, especially his McDonald's prank, his Fishing Alien, and his Ketchup Packet Bear.

:: Scot 3:36 AM [+] :: ::
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Slappyfeatherwhistle

Ever heard of the nose flute? Neither had I until about two weeks ago. As esoteric as the ocarina or the didgeridoo, they seem to come in two main varieties - simple and exotic. These ones look and sound like mini flutes and from what I listened to, sounded quite nice. A smaller, wooden sound to go with the wispy breaths of the nose. I couldn't tell you if what I was listening to was a nose flute, a fife, or a piccolo - to give you an idea of what the instrument sounded like. It can range a couple of octaves which is versatile enough. Held up under the nose, it's cool to see one played.

Not as cool though as the more simple ones. These ones have this pennywhistle quality (from what I can tell they are a single octave), but you only need one hand to play them. So what to do with that free hand? Well, dance. The Slappyfeatherwhistle Nose Flute Ensemble (website under construction), a unique talent troupe from Edmonton, does just that. In a cabaret of matching outfits, choreography, and nose flutes, a half dozen or so teens led by a conductor hum out a medley of traditionals and skitter around the stage in vaudevillian delight. The youths, mostly girls, look like the quirky suburban music and theatre types from high school. Whoever they are they put on a good show with an instrument I had never heard of - I hope to see them again.

:: Scot 9:54 PM [+] :: ::
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Big media on the ropes

Since high school we've been taught that anything owned, managed, and maintained by lowly humans will be subject to the same gaffes, misperceptions, and biases that we ourselves are. We all screw up and we all cloud our judgments according to our unique tendencies to do so. Accepted is that even some of our most important services - government, medicine, and education - are vulnerable to human blunders and biases. Unless a mistake or accident becomes too egregious, or a deliberate breach of ethics has occurred, the public will often tolerate a generous margin of error.

Big media has always been given much leeway by the public. Though not a critical service like government or medicine, the media fills an important role as a democratic pillar. Keeping the public informed and politically aware is as important and noble as the education or the charity sectors of our society. Because of this standard, as well as their common sales pitch, we generally expect the media to make good on presenting the news as truthfully as possible.

Columnists and newspaper editorials may offer pieces that make no effort to hide political stripes, but since we're used to seeing these on the opinion pages, there's really nothing suspicious here. Major papers will even print completely dichotomous points of view, even if less visible. The owners also have political biases and inclinations and hardly breach any ethics by generally commandeering their businesses according to their personal politics. Since the media, like any other industry, is fueled by competition, the political spectrum of the public is generally well represented. Those wishing to combat the prejudice of one media outlet need to do little more than access two or three others, mainstream or otherwise, for alternate takes.

Fact checking too is usually of little concern to us. Multiple sources are nearly always in concert pertaining to the who, when, and where of major events. Lesser details, if not corrected (or corrected prominently) by the news source that made the error, will often be corrected by alternate sources. The spirit of business competition here knows no bounds. Unless a news provider develops a reputation for misinformation, the occasional error does little harm. Again, the public's tolerance for honest mistakes by media outlets reporting or communicating information is often tolerant and fair.

The past few months have exposed some curious violations of bias and accuracy from this industry. Television and print have come under fire for years of methodically dishonest reporting as well as some highly questionable opinions and editorial content. An information savvy readership with access to more accurate news coverage, facts, and arguments has caught big media by surprise.

One of its crowning jewels, the New York Times, has been of late one of the most scrutinized. From the deliberate misquotations and seething hatred of syndicated columnist Maureen Dowd to the news gathering 'stringer' collective under the hire of journalist Rick Bragg (scroll to bottom), readers have been left to wonder how many years the paper has treated the news, and opinion, with this kind of recklessness. That reporters like Jayson Blair ware fabricating stories on the homefront from thin air surprised few after reading for months the 'quagmire' of Iraq - before, during, and after the war. Extremist bias and errors of information are not only happening in greater frequency and magnitude but are now bordering on tabloidism. It was more than just the Blair scandal that cost Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd their jobs; it was the culture of incompetent news delivery they had created. America's third largest daily is facing not only severe self-examination, but also a long overdue flogging.

America's most recognizable television news presence hasn't fared much better. A few months ago, CNN confessed it had struck a deal with Saddam and tailored its coverage of Iraq to present the vile regime as nothing more menacing than say...France. The cost of doing business with Saddam was to CNN a small price to pay for their journalists' limited access to the country. Nevermind the validity of news reporting from a place that incorporates torture into its definition of censorship - the idea of appeasing enemy regimes by omitting obvious news content, content such as the killing of their own children and the sponsoring of Middle Eastern terrorism, is nothing short of dishonorable. Even hostile media like Al Jazeera knew how to criticize Iraq. Other stories such as their piece on assault weapons has left its audience wondering if political ideology will always trump accuracy when its comes to reporting the news. How much presentation has been manipulated or omitted for the purpose of a hidden message? A gradual slide from ethics and responsible newsgathering to devil's handshakes and information sensationalism. American TV media, like print, has been caught playing tabloid.

The British media, yet to expose their Jayson Blairs, have nonetheless been under attack by their more intelligent than expected readership. Flirting with the fine line between bias and complete obfuscation of fact, the shrill cries of 'empire,' 'oil,' 'quagmire,' and 'looting' during the Iraq war made the British press at times look as professional and paranoid as the Arab News. The newsgathering and presentation seems to have also developed the same propensity for 'mistakes' as American media. Obvious misquotations and deliberate misinterpretations of events do little to retain the impressive reputation British journalism once enjoyed.

The opinion pages of the British media are also looking more like writing class projects than thoughtful commentary. Popular columnists John Pilger and Robert Fisk churn out extremist, Chomsky-esque versions of the West that bend, warp, and purposefully misconstrue facts for any point or argument necessary. Nothing is tangible in their post-modern malaise of all knowledge as hazy shades of gray and subject to the most wild of interpretations. Oblivious to their own anti-Angloism, their versions of events too often stray from provocative opinion to full blown alternate reality. With the role Britain will play in the current war on Islamism uncertain, and the dark cloud of the EU ready to assimilate Buckingham Palace, the Brits are unlikely to accept second rate newsgathering and analysis from their first rate nation much longer.

No stranger to its own anti-Westernism, the Canadian media has also indulged in excessive U.S. bashing the last couple of years. From the government sponsored CBC to the largest newspaper dailies, the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail, big Canadian media has turned this unique paranoia into a cottage industry. A combination of Liberal dynastism and a politically apathetic public has allowed a proliferation of weak and lazy opinions that treat its nation's best ally as a cold, hostile acquaintance. Columnists like Rick Salutin, Eric Margolis, Mark Kingwell, Haroon Siddiqui, and Heather Mallick echo the same anti-American fanaticisms found in European and leftist American media - sans the clever writing. This, coupled with the anti-American hostilities of the current government, has left many Canadians shaking their heads in disbelief and wondering 'Why are we supposed to hate them?'.

Consistent with its anti-West/anti-U.S. positions, big Canadian media has grown sympathetic to Middle Eastern Islamic terrorism. Defending the former regime of Saddam Hussein one day, equivocating Palestinian terrorism with Israeli self-defense the next. In this blind rush toward neutrality is a refusal to acknowledge the scope, and sickness, of Islamism and its primary objective: the annihilation of Israel. News providers like the CBC and the Toronto Star cling to the antiquated notion of terrorist equaling freedom fighter and routinely overlook the anti-Semitic barbarity of the Arab Muslim world. Chanting 'By the will of Allah, destroy the infidels!' while detonating explosives amidst children and pedestrians is not fighting for freedom, whether it's Jerusalem, Kashmir, Bali, Mombasa, or New York. If taking the middle ground between good and evil isn't bad enough, there are also have columnists like Michelle Landsberg, Antonia Zerbisias, and Naomi Klein with their fawning support for anti-Semitic conspiracy zealots like IndyMedia, WhatReallyHappened, and Rachel Corrie. Canadian big media, aping their Liberal overlords, has shifted from the realm of political bias and partiality to anti-Western extremism.

In the last couple of years, we saw some powerful institutions deservedly attacked for crossing various ethical thresholds. Companies like Enron and WorldCom were the biggest names in a lengthy parade of corporations that cheated past the public's tolerance level. With the amount of money and power at stake, people understood a certain level of corruption would be the norm - obviously the corporate world would be held to slightly lesser moral standards than perhaps the medical or educational sectors - but there was still a line and more than a few big businesses crossed it. Shady ethics and the occasional misdemeanor is one thing, but lying and stealing, in large enough doses, will more than get the attention of the public.

The Catholic Church also found out what happens when conduct becomes so unbecoming that it riles even the uninterested. Witness the anger directed at Cardinal Law (and the Pope) for 'overlooking' the pedophilia that priests had been engaging in for years. Cloaking the scandal at every turn by shuffling the priests to different churches compounded a horrible sex-crime with harboring and willful deception. People were angrier with the lying and condescension of the Catholic Church than they were at the demented priests.

So what is the public to think when they see news 'stories,' in the 'fable' sense of the term, in one of the nation's most important newspapers? Or when a media giant does protectionist business with international despots? Or defends them in print? Concocted events, omissions of truth, blatant lies, and rhetorical treason. For an institution that is supposed to deliver facts and information, this is unacceptable. This culmination of ethical and moral lapses in big media, combined with a seriously degraded product, has awoken the generally complacent public.

The extent to which the trust and power of the media kingpins has been compromised will only be determined by future audiences. If other media outlets and news providers avoid the scandals and serious blunders of the giants, and deliver the news with similar flair, they will find eager new customers. Media outlets also need to be aware that their readership is much different than it was ten years ago. No fact can go unchallenged, no argument easily dismissed. The next couple of years, with the noteworthy events that no doubt await, will determine what role big media will play in providing the public with news.

:: Scot 9:48 PM [+] :: ::
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