Results tagged “media” from Mist Net

Glancing over the Times this morning, I see this subhead on a story:

"The case of an immigration agent who is accused of demanding sex from a
woman raises questions about the vulnerability of the system to
corruption."

The only question I can personally think to raise is this: "Gee—is the system vulnerable to corruption?" And the only answer I can think of is this: Yes. Any system in which human beings make decisions is vulnerable to corruption. But if you raise the question with just the right sort of uber-serious tone, you can take one sleazeball and make him into a big significant Times story. The people at the Times have all worked very hard to get where they are, but actually this sort of thing is pretty easy.

It's probably obvious by now that I have a love-hate relationship with the media. The Times is like your slightly nerdy but but basically decent-guy cousin who did very well in grad school and is now a rising academic, and is given to making portentous pronouncements about things that just make the family laugh. At home, with the family, the nerdy family might even smile to himself at his own tendency to pretension. But he's still a big deal out in the world. We love him and we're proud of him but we still mock him occasionally because it's good for him.

It's the same on TV. People are always shooting each other in Philadelphia, which is 30 miles away from me, and whenever I see a TV I hear on the news that "shots rang out" on some corner somewhere. If you've ever heard a firearm discharged you know that shots do not ring. Depending, shots sound like firecrackers or they sound like two boards slapped together hard. It's a cracking noise, usually. No ringing. But on TV the shots invariably ring out. The only explanation I can think of for the utter uniformity of it over the years is that it's some sort of Federal Communications Commission regulation.

But really, the failure to describe gunfire in a fresh and compelling way is not the worst thing TV news does. I once heard this sort of thing called a "charming imperfection." And so is the tendency to find wide significance in an isolated incident, a la the Times. It's distinctive, part of who we are, like Marilyn Monroe's beauty mark—you wouldn't change it if you could.

As is my tendency to get caught up in things and forget the time. Holy crap, I've got 20 minutes to get ready for work. Bye!