Terra Incognita

I agree with Gothamist.  The snuggie phenomenon has gone way too far with this.

Instead of local exclusives and investigative work, newspapers took the cheap route and put national and celebrity coverage first.  He also criticizes (rightly) the national media for glamorizing CEO’s and politicians instead of taking a hard look at them.

The Village Voice has gotten their hands on the audio-book version of Bill O’Reilly’s novel Those Who Trespass.  You know, the one with really bad sex scenes.  They include short snippets from it that the people at Air-America are going to have so much fun with (“I wish I were a lesbian”).  Jimmy Kimmel got a hold of them too.  When I showed that to Julie she ran away with her fingers in her ears going “Eww!  Eww!”

Over at Wired Journalists, I wrote that newspapers are great at long, in-depth investigative pieces and should do more of that, while the internet is good at contextualizing information and should take advantage of it.  Paul Balcerak wrote back and said that what newspapers should do instead is do stories the types of people who read newspapers would enjoy.

Okay, so who reads newspapers?  The audience for newspapers according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s last State of the Media report is dropping, but the demographics who are most likely to read a newspaper are 65 and older, have a post-secondary degree, and white.

Newspapers are trying to reach out to younger readers with special, hipper editions marketed at young people, but young people are the least likely age group to read newspapers.

Part of advertising is figuring out ways of bringing in new customers, especially young ones.  Take the three major network’s national news broadcast.  The primary audience for them is also likely to be older, so the commercials are for things that older people would want, like drugs for bone-diseases, heart-burn and constipation.

Each time they’ve tried bringing in younger viewers, older viewers have dropped off, like when Katie Couric went to CBS news and changed up the format.  They quickly changed it back, when they realized their audience was dropping away.

The fear I have is that newspapers will start doing the same thing, trying to hang on to the demographics it has already and not experiment and embrace the medium it inhabits.  But again, now’s not a time for risk, apparently.

With all the talk about newspapers about to die, I think it’s time they took a little risk.

The guy who does Obama’s voice in this is really good!

NPR (which has had record ratings recently) is holding a March Madness like challenge to see who will be the next Republican nominee for President.  Sarah Palin made it to round 2, but lost to Mike Pence.  They’re currently holding polling to see who goes on to round four.  Who’s winning?  Tim Pawlenty, Ron Paul, Mark Sanford and Paul Ryan are the favorites.  Two governors, two congressmen.  Will it be down to  governor vs. governor or congressman against congressman?  Stay tuned!

Paul Craig Roberts has a piece in Counterpunch today about how Obama’s tax increases on the wealthiest 5% and how those who make $250,000 a year who would be taxed higher would have to suffer.  He writes about how a family or person making $250,000/year in New York City would have, after taxes $140,000 which is “not rich” in New York, and they wouldn’t be able to afford a Manhattan Apartment or a luxury car (who drives a car in Manhattan?)

But he does make a good point in that the super-rich, which make %0.5 of the population but own 22% of the wealth.   He doesn’t give any recommendations for what to do with them, though.  I do give them credit for funding much needed journalism as newspapers fall, like The Huffington Post’s latest venture or Pro Publica.

Just as long as journalists remember who they work for and that they should investigate the super-rich if warranted, even as they fund journalism projects, I’m happy.

Response to Yisrael.  You asked if “those” was more appropriate.  I wasn’t sure, so I checked my copy of the AP Style Guide and here’s what it says under “that”:

Use the conjunction that to introduce a dependent clause if the sentence sounds or looks awkward without it…

When in doubt, include that.  Omission can hurt.  Inclusion never does.

Oddly enough, it doesn’t have an entry on “those” or even “this.”  One of the other styles may have rules about this (the Chicago Manual would definetly have something on it), but I don’t use them most of the time.

As for your point about sending $1 billion to Hamas, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this is what you’re talking about.  The NY Times article doesn’t name the NGO’s the money will go to, and this article on how Hamas is funded lists one of its sources as charities in the territories without naming them.

The phrase “possibly going to Hamas” in your post makes me skeptical.  I’ll look into this a little more, but I’m skeptical.

As for Arafat, I’ll agree, it was wrong to send aid money to him.  I’m curious about your thoughts on whether a political party like Fatah can ever gain legitimacy if it is founded by a terrorist organization.  Sinn Fein has historically been tied to the IRA and yet they are the second largest party in the Northern Ireland assembly, or the Maoists in Nepal.

Minnesotans are not too polite to say that John Cornyn is a piece of shit.  And I had no idea Tim Pawlenty was contemplating a run for President in 2012.

David Ignatius’ column shines a light on organizations that raise money in America to pay for the building of Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands – something that the Government and other organizations have condemned for decades.  It even has a policy that forbids spending aid money to settlements.  He could have named more names than just the Friends of Ir David Foundation and The Hebron Fund.

One response, from a resident of Shiloh, a settlement in the West Bank, says that he is “living on Jewish land, where Joshua set up the tabernacle, where Samuel prophesised [sic] and judged and where Achiyah berated a king of Israel.”