That’s telling ’em...

Going out with style!  Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that the ‘‘morons’’ will suffer any consequences, except to whine uselessly when Tesco moves in, demolishes the vacant shops, and builds a monster store (with its own parking lot).

S.Weasel has the backstory.

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Outside Broadcast fun

256 audio channels + 30-some cameras + miles of fibre and triax + patch ROOMS = 2½ hours of television, the O2 Arena’s ‘‘patch man’’ tells (almost) all...

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Clipfile - February 19, 2013

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Meaningless noise...

National Public Radio ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos sets up the situation:

On Saturday, Jan. 19, ESPN’s Howard Bryant appeared on NPR's Weekend Edition with Scott Simon to talk about sports.  The broadcast was taped live.  Simon asked about Lance Armstrong’s famous interview with Oprah Winfrey, and Bryant referred back to a tweet he read:

I mean, I think the big problem that I had with listening to Lance over the last couple of days was how controlled – how much he was trying to control this confession.  That someone had put out a very funny tweet in my timeline that other day that said, ‘‘With this much remorse he could be the next spokesperson for the NRA.’’  I mean, it was really that controlling.  And I’m listening to this, and I’m thinking: He’s not sorry at all about this.

Simon didn’t respond to the NRA comment, but kept the conversation focused on sports.

Listener Charles Brown... [did].  Before the audio or transcript had been posted online, Brown wrote on the show’s site, ‘‘I am looking forward to seeing the transcript of this segment, featuring Howard Bryant’s tone-deaf comparison between the remorse, or lack thereof, on the part of Lance Armstrong, and ‘the NRA.’ ’’

The transcript Brown eagerly awaited eventually arrived, but the reference to the gun association wasn’t there – either in the audio file or written transcript.  The response by Bryant now existed in both as the following:

I mean, I think the big problem that I had with listening to Lance over the last couple of days was how controlled - how much he was trying to control this confession.  And I’m listening to this, and I’m thinking: He’s not sorry at all about this.

Brown contacted our office suspicious of a conspiracy.  ‘‘There is no explanation for the post-broadcast edit.  Is this instance a representative one, for NPR editing and posting policy(ies)?’’

Bryant’s remark is yet another example of the kultursmog that pervades the MSM.  He calls it ‘‘very funny’’ (it’s not, it’s lame).  Nor does it add anything to the discussion about Lance Armstrong.  What it does is borrow somebody else’s snark^[1] to signal that Bryant has proper, PC-approved feelings and that he stands firmly against the target of today’s ten-minute hate.^[2]

MSM-ers (and progressive leftists, but I repeat myself) do this sort of thing all the time, often without even thinking about it.  For them, it’s as habitual (and content-free) as ‘‘how do you do?’’  The important thing to remember is that, when it comes to such remarks, they eventually pay no attention to what’s being said: For them it’s just meaningless noise.

Back in the day, had I been prepping the segment for broadcast, I would have grabbed my splicing block and grease pencil and made the exact excision that the NPR editors did (on the grounds of wasted time, if no other).  But that would have been before the item aired.  What happened on the 18th was different: Apparently the initial feed of the Simon-Bryant interview aired live, or at least ‘‘live-meaning-unedited.’’  But then someone with second thoughts clipped the sentence for later transmissions.^[3]

Now NPR has a policy about changes to stuff once it has been broadcast. NPRs Stuart Seidel:

Only the last feed of each show is archived and transcribed.  As a result, there are times when a listener may have heard something on a first or second feed of a show and then find that the transcript does not reflect what was aired on an early feed.

We correct errors as quickly as possible when we learn of them. Significant errors are noted on the air in ensuing feeds of a show.  When appropriate, corrections posted online note whether the error occurred in an early or final feed of a show.

...but (back to the ombudsman) in this case...

The edit in the Bryant segment was not seen as the correction of a mistake, and therefore no note was added to the transcript online that a change had been made.

So here we have... well, something.

My take is that the NPR people can’t (or won’t) see there is a problem, because they can’t see the problem.  Ombudsman, again:

...The editors were still right to excise [Bryant’s] unsupported, unexplored, non-sports comment, as clever as it might have been.

Agreed.  But what Bryant said is not just ‘‘unsupported, unexplored, [and] non-sports.’’  He also took a political position, against the National Rifle Association and, by extension, in favor of ‘‘doing something’’ about ‘‘gun violence.’’  To some folks, that might be important.  Maybe even controversial.

But the NPR-ites don’t notice, because (to them) all that Bryant did in the excised segment was mouth the usual leftist platitudes.  Again: As meaningless and content-free as ‘‘how do you do?.’’

That makes the edited and un-edited quotes identical.  And if they’re identical, then substituting one for the other is no correction, so what’s the problem?

Meanwhile, we rubes out here in the hinterland discover that the NRA snark has mysteriously disappeared from the ‘‘official transcript’’ on the web (and, as it turns out, the ‘‘late feeds to flyover country’’ as well), and see their suspicions of media bias (and duplicity) confirmed.  The situation not being improved by Ombudsman Schumacher-Matos characterizing listener Brown’s questions as ‘‘suspicious of a conspiracy,’’ and preemptively labeling others who might share Brown’s concerns as ‘‘conspiracy theorists.’’^[4]

I find it simply amazing that an organization that prides itself in its exquisite sensitivities- to race, national origin, economic condition, background, social status, exploitation, victimhood...- can be so absolutely, unbelievably tone-deaf to the concerns of a large portion of its constituency.

One might even suspect it’s intentional.


(Via: Insty)
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Clipfile - February 6, 2013

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Memory hole-ing at the NYTimes?

Instapundit:

Hmm.  I thought it was an ethical violation to threaten criminal action to bring about a civil settlement.  ‘‘During settlement negotiations, the Justice Department held out the threat of a criminal case against S.&P., the people said.’’

UPDATE:  Now this is interesting.  The part about criminal threats is now missing from the NY Times story, though the phrase still shows up in a search.^[1]  I wonder why it was removed?

Silly Glenn, ethics only apply to Republicans, not Democrats or their enablers!

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‘‘We Must Do Something About The Media’’

Ace:

...What we are witnessing is the full and seamless fusion of media power with government power.
...
[Today] the media considers its adversarial function to consist of serving as adversaries to critics of Obama and the Democrats; thus Terry Moran shaming himself by rushing out to ask what right a Senator has to question the Secretary of State on matters of foreign policy.

They do not consider themselves required to exert any adversarial pressure on governmental power itself...

This is dark, and dangerous, and will lead to horrors.  It always has led to horrors before.

Meanwhile: From Europe, a very ‘‘European’’ approach:

A group reporting to the European Commission has recommended the regulation of the media and bloggers. It also called for the creation of several new regulatory apparatus for fining, monitoring and chivvying the Press.
...
‘‘Fair legal regulation is necessary, balancing the new dimension of freedom of expression and the justified rights and interests of other citizens,’’ the group declared in a new report.

‘‘Any new regulatory frameworks must be brought into line with the new reality of a fluid media environment, covering all types of journalistic activities, regardless of the transmission medium.’’

Then the report’s writers take a sharp turn into suggested punishments for hacks who irritate the powers that be, namely fines, grovelling apologies and the ability to stop reporters from doing their job:

All EU countries should have independent media councils. Media councils should have real enforcement powers, such as the imposition of fines, orders for printed or broadcast apologies, or removal of journalistic status.

...
The report recommends the creation of a ‘‘European fundamental rights agency’’ with ‘‘a monitoring role of national-level freedom and pluralism of the media’’.  In addition, we’re told ‘‘a network of national audio-visual regulatory authorities should be created, on the model of the one created by the electronic communications framework.  It would help in sharing common good practices and set quality standards’’.
...
The high-level group [also] told member states that taxpayers should bail out incompetent or irrelevant media businesses, although naturally there would be a beauty contest first (the emphasis is ours):

There should be a provision of state funding for media which are essential for pluralism (including geographical, linguistic, cultural and political pluralism), but are not commercially viable.  The state should intervene whenever there is a market failure leading to the under-provision of pluralism, which should be considered as a key public good.

...
The aforementioned proposals are the tip of an iceberg...

The Europeans are waiting for a mandate.  The Americans have already volunteered.


Related:

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Clipfile - January 21, 2013

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Yeah, just keep on thinking that...

THE WEEK, January 25:


‘‘The NRA’’ (stolen from Tam):

...and this (from one of William Jacobson’s readers):


Maybe it’s an advantage that progressives get their news from the MSM, too.

Elsewhere:
Related:

LATER (130121 15:00):  I know, I know... ND 1500?

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 19:51:36 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Topic for discussion...

Instapundit, January 11:

A SUPERIOR PREDATOR: Baby Sharks Can Sense Danger, Even Before They’re Born.

Posted at 2:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

If an unborn baby shark can sense danger, just what might an unborn human baby sense?

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