another haiku by Tyler Jackson

Oh, Law and Order.
Your Special Victims bring joy.
Heinous sex crime joy.

Tim Russert

Beacon of journalistic talent and integrity (and fellow son of Buffalo, NY) Tim Russert died today at 58.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25145431/

This, I believe, is an official harbinger of the end times of broadcast journalism. He was one of the last ones left, y'know? I never thought I'd feel this emotional about this sort of thing, but well...there ya go.

He was my parents' age. I never met him, but I always looked to him as a role model.

Tim, you'll be sorely missed.

Come, Mr. Taliban, Tally Me Banana

You've heard me rant about staying mindful of priorities and journalistic integrity, particularly since we've been sinking precious minutes of airtime to "Yep, she's still gone!" SadGrrl13 items. Case in point...

I was working on a story about this, but it got shot down:

Pakistan Angry as Strike by U.S. Kills 11 Soldiers

We're covering one missing girl ad nauseum, but apparently an international incident involving the loss of 11 Pakistani soldiers' lives during a fight against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan (remember 9/11? Yeah, remember how it had nothing to do with Iraq?) isn't as important.

We're spoonfeeding our viewers sensationalistic crap, and we're failing to do OUR JOBS as journalists. We as an industry are irresponsible and dangerous.

The news is broken, and we need to fix it.

fighting the good fight

I don't see why it makes me a bad guy to insist that covering a story about ONE missing girl -- a story with NO NEW DEVELOPMENTS, mind you -- is less important than covering other topics that affect hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people.

I'm not trying to minimize the tragedy of SadGrrl13's disappearance, okay? It's sad. It has affected her and her family's lives indelibly. But why does it warrant round-the-clock coverage, while more important things get short shrift? My assertion has nothing to do with SadGrrl13 herself -- it has to do with HOW we report the freakin NEWS!

I mean, it's obvious. Ratings. It's sensational. I'm not an idiot, I know that's what's up. I'm just not afraid or ashamed to stand up and call WTEN on it. Whatever happened to real journalism? Can I just jump back in time to the '70's please?

Tension tension tension.

Ever feel like you're the only one who seems to get it? You're in the minority, or all alone, in defending principles and standing up for what SEEMS obvious. I feel like I'm having to hop on top of my chair and scream "The sky is blue!" while everyone else seems to willfully ignore what's right and insist that it's paisley. I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone. Or Ibsen's Enemy of the People. (See, I read.)

I've fought for years to keep WTEN a news outlet to be proud of. It's my WHOLE LIFE. And now it feels like it's getting sucked into a vortex of stupidity.

I'm NOT gonna let this go.

a haiku by Tyler Jackson

I thought it might rain.
Who's in your house with his knife?
It's me! Warm and dry.

All the news that's fit to print.

We truly are purveyors of the most relevant and newsworthy items around...

Attempted Sexual Contact

If we ran a news story every time I attempted sexual contact, it'd have to be an ongoing series with theme music and graphics.

Isn't this the kind of thing that belongs in the police reports? I guess when you've only got 800 people in your town, this kinda thing is big news.

Remember when people had a stake in their country's wars?

Today, June 6th, 2008, is the 64th Anniversary of D-Day.

I can only imagine what it must've been like to cover this sort of thing...

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

And here's an obligatory link referencing legendary WWII war correspondent Ernie Pyle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Pyle

These are different times.

Talk Amongst Yourselves. Here's a topic...

Don't have a ton of time to blog right now, but I figured I need to post more often, so here's something we all need reminding about from time to time...


yellow journalism
n. Journalism that exploits, distorts, or exaggerates the news to create sensations and attract readers.

sen·sa·tion·al·ism
–noun
1. subject matter, language, or style producing or designed to produce startling or thrilling impressions or to excite and please vulgar taste.
2. the use of or interest in this subject matter, language, or style: The cheap tabloids relied on sensationalism to increase their circulation.

And this is a particularly edifying link...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_controversy

free speech and blogs?

OK, I tried to make a witty portmanteau out of the phrase "free speech" and "blogs," and the best I could do was "free bleach," which would give people the wrong idea entirely. So forget it.

Anyway, this isn't really about free speech - it's more about workplace propriety. I just wanted a provocative subject header. See, I can learn to be sensationalist, too!

Here's a very timely article about blogging policies and ethics for people who work in newsrooms.

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=67&aid=142640

Judging from this, I guess I'm going to blogger hell.

Or maybe I'll lose my job! :-O
And then I'd never have to get to work under Angela again!* That would be terrible.

* Not that I mind being under Angela. hey-oh!

Chris Hansen, go get Lucas and Spielberg...

...because they have ass-raped my childhood.

They showed up at my house with a scary movie, a six-pack of Mike's Hard Lemonade, chocolate covered cherries from Walgreens, and some lube.

Where were you, Chris Hansen, to step out from the kitchen and ask them why they had their pants off in my living room?

Why weren't you there to read copies of their script treatments back to them, to shame them with their own words?

After the six-year-long slap in the face that was the Star Wars prequels, along with the completely unnecessary re-tooling of E.T. a few years back, I was REALLY hoping that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull would be good. It's the last piece of my childhood that's still untainted.

I really gave it a shot. I've always been an Indy fan since my parents took me to see Raiders on my eighth birthday. Harrison Ford has been something of a role model for me. I've been sayin' for years that Harrison Ford hasn't made a good film since The Fugitive, and...it's still true.

I don't wanna spoil anything for you, but at the same time, I don't want you to ACTUALLY SEE it anyway. Let's just say that the plot is a mess, the characters are completely empty and pointless, and the Skull in question gets more laughs than it does oohs and ahs. I really want to say more about it, but if I spoil it, I'd catch a bunch of flak, so let's just say this: The premise? Stargate did it way better.

By all means, if you enjoy scenes of Shia LeBeouf swinging on vines, leading an army of CGI monkeys to defeat the Russians, don't let me stop you from seeing this film.

If I ever see thirty straight seconds of Shia LeBeouf getting smacked in the nuts with tree branches again, it had better REALLY BE HAPPENING.

Peace, love, and really huge fake ants,

Tyler Jackson

R.I.P.
My Inner Child
1973-2008

I'm sorry

Somebody commented (anonymously of course - coward!) about my post from earlier today and I've had a change of heart - I take back the SEX AND THE CITY comment - the women on that show ARE strong women - definitely role models for the future Hillarys of America :-)

just in case people don't think I have a sense of humor ...

You know, about all the stuff WTEN is reporting ...

Lessons I Have Learned on the Job

1) If you ever criticize the media's sensationalistic and oh-my-god-look-at-that-freak attitude about covering sexual predators, you are just as bad as the sex offenders.

Thanks, boss, for letting me know I was "defending child rapists." If you hadn't put it so emphatically and hyperbolically, I might still be ignorant to the fact that I'm supporting such activity.

In all seriousness, shows that parade the mentally ill across a stage for the purposes of entertainment and what amounts to stoning -- well, do you really think that's A) an intelligent and reasonable thing to do and B) actually going to help matters?

There are guys who end up on To Catch a Predator more than once. The viewers say, "Wow, you'd think they'd learn!" Exactly. They're crazy. They have a problem. They can't control it; it's a compulsion. They should be put away, not held up as sadistic entertainment. These "news" stories are not a deterrent. You can't pretend that you're helping anyone by producing them. Just admit that you're in it for the ratings, and stop trying to falsely ennoble your Jerry Springer imitation. You're not doing this because you're idealistic, and you want to use the media to help people. You're doing it, because you know slackjawed yokels will be transfixed, just like when they drive past a car wreck.

Why else do We the People eat this shit up? Because it gives us a chance to separate an imaginary segment of the population, put them in a box, and do that thing we humans love to do: Assign blame for our fears and troubles to The Other -- some strange, fundamentally evil and irredeemable outside element. "These people are crazy and evil! We need to defend ourselves from these monsters!" They give us someone to hate, to laugh at, and to punish, while we go about our holy, blameless lives, knowing that WE are good and right. Now let's get back to killing brown people in the name of freedom.

Ugh.

2) When a man is selfish, aggressive, loudmouthed, and intolerant in the workplace, he is justly labeled an "asshole." When a woman engages in the same behavior, she is "strong" and "empowered."

Seriously, haven't we moved far enough along that we can stop congratulating women when they engage in the same sexist and obnoxious behaviors they'd never tolerate in a man? Can we stop pretending that the characters on Sex and the City are wonderful, strong people? Those women aren't strong, they're self-absorbed, petty, mean-spirited children. They represent everything that's wrong with us these days. Instead of kissing their asses for such outrageously expensive fashions, maybe we should be more impressed if they just shopped at Target instead and sent the extra money to Myanmar.

When a man has sex with many women and treats them all like crap, he's a bad guy, but when a woman does it, she's just in touch with her sexuality. The traits we chide in men are lauded as virtues in women. I thought the idea of feminism was that we'd all treat each other with equal respect, not that we'd just turn into two competing super powers like the US and the Soviet Union, in a perpetual standoff.

It makes it really hard to find a date when you're so adversarial.

Anyway, that's a tangent, and what the hell am I talking about?

3) I am old.

I made a Barney Miller reference at work this morning, and my coworker Brian -- a 27-year-old ADULT -- didn't get it. Then I realized that he was probably two when it went off the air.

It'd be less galling if he wasn't also so obsessed with ironic "nostalgia" about the 1980's. For chrissakes, I don't need to buy a faux-distressed Ghostbusters ringer tee -- I can just go to Buffalo and get my ACTUALLY faded Ghostbusters t-shirt out of my parents' attic. (I don't think it'd fit, though.)

what happened to the war??? um, right, no one cares.

Not a huge Katie Couric fan, she's a news robot, but think it's interesting that when she did go into Iraq to report the story, CBS got its worst ratings EVER.

This is a really interesting article and there may be a whole bunch of reasons why we're not reporting the war anymore, gas prices, the economy, whatever, or as my colleague Angela says, "why report on something no one wants to WATCH?" Well, yes, that may be true, but it must have more to do with the weakness of our media - our inability to stand up for and to anything.

Anyway, give this a read.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/business/media/26carr.html?8dpc

Hell

Where have I been for the last ten days?

A sort of hell, new job hell - Oh, did I get that new job promotion, you ask? No, I didn't. I have the same old job I've always had, it's just that now I have a woman telling me what to do everyday and that's REALLY annoying, not because she's a woman, of course, but because she's this ONE PARTICULAR woman who busts my balls all day.

I'm considering new directions - law school, or is 34 too old to teach English in Korea, or join the Peace Corps? ... I am so sick of Albany - I mean, I'm FROM Buffalo, another crap town, couldn't I have made it at least as far as New York City?

More Insight into the Complex Mind of Tyler Jackson

I have a myspace page now - I know most people are on to facebook, but yeah, I'm a little behind ...

http://www.myspace.com/tylerjackson620

New look, new Outlook

I had to change the look of the blog - I think my inability to post on a more consistent basis has something to do with that ugly brown I had going, but I guess we'll see ...

So, I didn't write about this before, but I DID NOT get the promotion I was up for and I thought they'd go outside if they DIDN'T go with me, but no, they hired from within - one of my colleagues who's been at WTEN for about six months now, and, you know, I see the writing on the wall.

I don't know how long I can last at WTEN anymore because we're now on a crusade to overhaul the type of reporting we've done now for years, ever since I've been here - community focused news, smart journalism about what's happening in the world ... we've been the only news station in Albany to actually consistently report on the war in Iraq.

So, WTEN is now entering the world of clever graphics, bells, whistles and the bottom line, which is that we ABSOLUTELY must cut the distance between WTEN and Fox and NBC ... So, what are we going to do to make that happen?

Pretty much whatever it takes.

So, if you see news stories that don't seem newsworthy, or if we run stories into the ground that seem irrelevant to anyone and everyone, well, we're doing it because YOU'RE WATCHING and WE KNOW IT and WE'RE GIVING YOU WHAT YOU WANT TO SEE because yes, you SAY you care about the War, but you don't really want to SEE it - because yeah, it's bloody, a lot of people are dying and it seems endless.

Anyway, sorry about the tone, sorry about the self-righteousness too - I've just always been an advocate for good journalism, but now I don't see the point anymore.

Okay, I don't think amber alerts are a BAD idea ...

I got into an argument with Angela over my last post, so just for the record:

I don't think things such as Amber alerts are bad ideas, it's just they take the place of "real news," such as reporting on the war, the economy and the *bigger* issues that affect people's lives -
that was my only point.

As a LOCAL tv journalist, I do get tired of writing reams of copy about a hot-local-story-of-the- moment that eats up air time and may only vaguely affect our lives.

what happened to the war and the economy?

The current Democratic race has got me seriously depressed. Two of the best candidates the Dems have had in years have become two of the candidates I'm most sick of hearing about because of the media's insistence on focusing on bullshit - I had to turn last week's debate off.

What are we talking about in the media now? the War? the Economy? of course not. The number one topic being covered by TV news in this campaign is the Jeremiah Wright controversy and believe me, I'm happy it broke now instead of in October, can you imagine?, but for God's sake, can we talk about the war again!?!

and can some one out there in the national news media PLEASE COVER the fact that

a. the Democrats don't have a realistic exit strategy out of Iraq (if they do, please e-mail it to me: tyler.jcksn@gmail.com)

and that

b. no one has a good and realistic economic plan?

who covers this? is there any journalist out there who has the expertise to cover what's happening in the economy and ask the candidates tough questions about what they're going to do when it goes belly up?

No, there isn't.

And for a guy like myself, a self-proclaimed and frustrated Bob Woodward wannabe, working in the local TV news is like being a state Senator when you wanna play with the big boys in DC -

all we ever get to cover at WTEN is the next great medical discovery, a shooting in a neighborhood only an idiot in this city would be stupid enough to go to and yet another Amber alert.

Bernstein

Like most male journalists, I'm more of a Woodward man than I am a Bernstein man - I mean, would you rather be Robert Redford, or Dustin Hoffman? but anyway, here's Bernstein on TV news:

Carl Bernstein said on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer": "I think that the real trends in journalism in the past 30 years have been toward gossip, sensationalism, manufactured controversy, and at the same time as we're doing the dumbing down of most American journalism to the point where we're losing most of our context, then you have these great newspapers like the Washington Post and the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, that are doing better reporting in many ways than they ever have." BOB WOODWARD'S BEEF: "There is a lot of good journalism, but the environment is, 'Hey, that's on CNN. My God, let's go chase it.'" (PBS NewsHour)

lurid storytelling and just how sick of my job I really really am

I'm on assignment right now in Philadelphia, I'm not going to bore you with WHY I'm in Philly and what the story is I'm working on, suffice to say, it's tedious enough to make me cry and with the anxiety of waiting to hear if I'm going to get promoted, I'm having a hard time focusing on my job.

But anyway, yesterday, I had a break between a meeting and an interview and just enough time to get lunch and hang out in my room at the Double Tree and I'm flipping channels, not thinking about anything, watching some Keith Olberman on MSNBC and there's a commercial and I end up flipping to the Jerry Springer show ... remember him?

He's still around.

And he's done away with his "guests" sitting in chairs, what's the point, really? people run out and bash each other from the get-go, why pretend you're going to have a civilized conversation when what's most entertaining is to bash the person who disagrees with you in the face as hard as you can? and now they have puppets, yes, strange little Muppet-like puppets that comment on the action and cheering people in super hero costumes who stand around and watch and also, a human torso! yes, that's right, a human torso! that's not really involved with anything, he just scuttles around the stage ...

It reminded me of my profession - news as the carnival freak show in the American entertainment circus, a series of booths where pedophiles and astronauts in diapers rule the air and there's no analysis of why anything happens. God, I sound bitter I know, but when you're sent to Philadelphia to cover a story as stupid as the one I'm covering right now I don't see any reason to NOT be bitter ...

I wish I had more to say, but I'm hungry and the fine city of Philadelphia beckons ... ugh.

the perfect news story ... ?

I don't know about you, but I don't think I'd go so far as to push someone to suicide to prove a point, OR get a good news story ...

check it

more on this topic later, but for now, read this - especially if you're watching WTEN every night.

http://www.esquire.com/features/predator

I have SexyBack stuck in my head ...

because one of my co-workers is totally obsessed with it - it's drivin' me nuts!

but that's beside the point.

the point is - I don't feel I have a political ax to grind, or I didn't. I don' think of myself as that political even, I didn't vote until 2000 and I was in my thirties - but there are some people who can't divorce their politics from their work ...

the station has become OBSESSED with this one story, we're running it over and over and over again and the story itself, yeah, it's a good story it should be told but the frequency and the fervency at which we're running it? and I know we're really doing it because the people I work for have their own ax to grind - don't let anyone tell you there's such a thing as a "liberal media," the media's too stupid to coordinate itself well enough to lean left or right, or choose the center.

We media folks report whatever stupid thing we happen to be consumed with on a given news day ...

okay, this blog thing is weird because ...

A friend of mine in Houston Texas worked for the Chronicle for a number of years and we talked monthly, he and I went to middle school on up together, so I was always very aware of what was going on with him and the paper and ... well, Texas is really conservative, right? Austin aside it's not a great place for a left-leaning journalist (yeah, yeah, I know! we're ALL left-leaning, right)

But he started a blog as a place to get his ideas out there, or just even report on the news that he thought was important - this was in the year or so after the war when it was unpatriotic to even say there were no WMDs in Iraq and anyway, long story short, my friend no longer works at the Chronicle and it was because of that blog ... the damn thing got him fired!!!

So, i'm a little nervous writing about anything other than I had some French toast this morning at the diner near my house and it was delicious ...

My first post on my first blog? say wha? why?

I opened my e-mail this morning (Saturday! I usually don't even check it on the weekend, I get enough of it at work) and I saw an e-mail from a colleague about her new blog

http://angelasnewsroom.blogspot.com/

And I'm not usually so transparently competitive, but hey, I had to run out and start my very own blog - heeeelllooooo, Angela! and hello world!