Watchdogs of democracy?

About a week ago, I finished reading Helen Thomas’s Watchdogs of democracy?: the waning Washington press corps and how it has failed the public. And I absolutely loved the book.

If you’re in journalism, interested in journalism or think the media is a left-leaning entity, I would highly recommend giving it a read. Thomas calls out the press for doing nothing when President Bush called on America to go to war with Iraq. She points out that it is the media’s function to question our leaders and ensure the public is getting all the information. “Gotcha journalism” is the biggest buzzword, but asking those kind of questions usually helps expose corruption or incompetence.

Thomas goes on to talk about media consolidation, and its impact on the messages Americans receive.

As Representative Maurice Hinchey once said, media consolidation “is the most critical issue facing the American people today: whether to allow a handful of people to determine what information we receive and influence the decisions we make.”

Congressman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) summed up the issue well when he said the FCC rules “will lead to even fewer media giants owning and controlling what people see, hear, and read in America. That’s truly dangerous because the health of our democracy depends on multiple viewpoints being debates. When you have only a few companies controlling everything, you get one corporate view.”

Even if you’re not interested in the rest of the book, I would suggest picking up a copy and reading her epilogue.

She definitely sticks it to bloggers, saying they aren’t really journalists and shouldn’t be credentialed for events. Thomas says that “real journalists” work for papers, wire services or television outlets. But those outlets are the ones being impacted by media consolidation.

While blogging may be more of an opinion piece, in lieu of journalism, bloggers are digging up facts and writing posts that are in the public interest. The problem stems from writers who are pushing their opinions as reality, and the readers who believe those interpretations to be true.

Overall, it’s a great read, though. I would urge you to go out and borrow the book for a weekend.

Heading down Arkansas way

On another note, I’m in the process of getting ready to head out to the brand new terminal at Indianapolis International Airport. This will be my first trip through Weir Cook Terminal, and from everything I’ve heard, it’s fantastic.

I’ll be working this week’s Sun Belt game on ESPN+, Florida Atlantic at Arkansas State.

I was looking forward to heading to Arkansas for the weekend. It’s in the south, it should be warm, right? Apparently not. The forecast for tomorrow has the high at 48°, but we’ll be there at 7:00am and it’s going to be cold!

Rental car delicious-ness

I couldn’t believe I got this rental car in Monroe, Louisiana. A Ford Mustang? From an airport that only takes prop and regional jets? And they had a whole fleet of Ford Mustangs?

I guess I should look into moving to Monroe, LA, there’s apparently more happening there than it appears.

From abcnews.com

Wow.

That’s all there is to say about tonight.

Unfortunately, we still don’t know which way Indiana went this year. Blue? Red? A shade of purple is what we’re at now.

At least I know which image I need, and change is coming:

Barack Obama wins

Feel free to share.

Full images are 4500 x 6000 (approximately 10.5MB).

Barack Obama wins

John McCain wins

I completely forgot about posting these pictures.

Earlier this month, Charles Gibson anchored ABC World News from Indianapolis. And I was there.

We showed up at around 3:00pm to shoot behind-the-scenes for some upcoming promos. And ended up spending the day at the location (the St. Clair St. bridge). The part I was most looking forward to, was the close of the show. When Charlie says, “I’m Charlie Gibson, and I hope you had a good day. For all of us at ABC News, have a good night.” That’s my favorite part of the show.

And I got to see him say it. He was 10 feet from me.

Awesome.

I didn’t forget to post this. I just got a little occupied and posting this slipped to the back of my mind.

That’s all. I wasn’t avoiding you. Really. I promise.

@mmagnolia22 and I spent a week away from work. No e-mails. No phone calls. No editing. No website.

We were back in Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills, NC for 7 days. And it was fantastic. We were joined by my old roommate Mike and Dan and Kristi again this year. Plus a bunch of people we didn’t know.

The weather was great, and terrible and great. For about two days in the middle of the trip it rained like crazy and the wind blew so strong the house was shaking. Some expert reports were 50+ MPH gusts at the shore with high seas. Luckily the high seas didn’t end up in the living room.

We foolishly decided the day with the worst wind was the right day to walk out onto the Nag Head Fishing Pier that stretches pretty far out into the water. @mmagnolia22 almost lost a sandal to the fierce winds, but I became a knight in shining tennis shoes when I rescued it from near tragedy.

All in all, it was a very good trip. No more details. Maybe a reflective post later. But right now, I’ve got work to do…

On our trip to the Outer Banks last year, Dan had one of the most amazing devices ever created. In fact, there’s a good chance it wasn’t made by man, but spawned from the hopes and dreams of drunk college students the world over.

The instrument was simply a pair of flip flops, but hidden underneath the flop was a bottle opener. Yes, a bottle opener.

In OBX it was all the rage, we all wanted to use- what basically amounted to Dan’s shoe- the sandal to open our tasty adult beverages.

Well this year, he’s in for it.

I found a device that’s amazing-ness surpasses that of the sandal-disguised bottle opener, the hat-disguised bottle opener.

Isn't it the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?

It’s not really disguised, though. I mean the opener is right out there on the end. In fact, there’s a chance I could put an eye out with that thing, but whatever.

Dangerous. Pointy. Delicious.

Oh well, off to the airport. Got a plane to catch so I can use this thing on the beach tonight.

A new television season is quickly approaching.

ABC has dubbed next week “National Stay at Home Week,” despite the fact the Wednesday and Friday night lineups won’t be debuting. (Trust me, I cannot wait for Pushing Daisies and Eli Stone to return. They are fantastic shows, no matter what your neighbors and friends say).

@mmagnolia22 and I will be in North Carolina on vacation, and probably won’t want to watch our favorite shows while we’re gone. But that doesn’t mean we want to miss them altogether :-). So, I’ve assembled the show lists from the Big 4, plus HBO and Showtime; this way I can coordinate the DVR schedule a little more effectively than in the past.

The shows in red are what we’ll be recording, with a few more additions for @mmagnolia22 I suspect. We’re not recording the 60th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, because we do plan on watching that while at the Outer Banks. It just might involve flipping over to NBC for a while every now and then.

What are you planning to watch next week?

Here are the program guides I created, without my recording marks. Or you can download the Photoshop file (≈4MB) (right-click and select “Save as” or “Save target as”).

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Sometimes (read: at least twice a week) I walk down to the vending machine for a sugar boost. Usually I go for the Three Musketeers bar, as that’s the only think I’ve found guaranteed not to have melted or gone stale in the delivery truck.

Today I took a closer look at the row beneath my usual destination, and was surprised by their pricing/marketing technique.

For some reason I have a feeling E2 is a lot more popular than E5