Friday, 23 April 2010

The Press

The natives are restless (again)


Advice from all over:

When you try to tell the story as you want it to be, rather than the story that’s really there, you may wind up looking like an idiot.  (AKA “Shut up and listen, you might learn something”):

Newsboy:  “...So, there’s oil leaking from the well...?”

Rear Admiral Mary Landry [USCG]:  “No, [name redacted], what you see on the water -- contained by the booms -- is from the oil rig itself.”

NB:  “But if it was-- Wouldn’t that be an impossible situation, with the oil rig collapsed on top of the well?  You couldn’t get to it.”

ML (As though speaking to a very young child):  “The platform didn’t collapse on the well.”

NB (Disappointedly):  “But what if it had?  Wouldn
’t that be an unprecedented environmental disaster?”

ML (As though she had over-estimated the child’s age):  “It did not.  The oil you see on the surface is residual from the explosion.  The rig fell next to the well.  There has been no leakage.  We are monitoring it closely.”

NB: (Looking crestfallen):  “Well, thank you.”

How about, y’know, digging out some answers?
...There was a story a month or two back about how the Department of Education was trying to acquire 27 short-Barrelled shotguns.  It lead to alot of internet buzz and funny comments in web forums, but we never got any well-publicized followup.  Did the DOE acquire the guns?  Where are they now?  What specific cases were SBSs ever used by DOE agents?  Under what legal circumstances will it be DOE agents who go in guns ablazing, as opposed to some other agency?  The closest thing I could find to followup by the MSM was this WaPo “newsblog” post, stashed away in the back recesses of their website, with the reporter apparently satisfied with the DOE not returning her phonecalls.  For F&#$’s sake there’s a news story there...

And remember, a paycheck from the New York Times doesn’t mean you have attained enlightenment:
Don’t tell me that a highly paid NY Times Op-ed guy is so much smarter than internet idiots when he was so obviously and provably WRONG on a rather major topic.

Posted by: Old Grouch in The Press at 18:39:16 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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