Wayyy OT and ranting:
Ever watch Who's Line Is It Anyway, where one guy plays an "on the scene"
news reporter standing in front of a green screen without knowing what's on
it? Then the anchors ask him all kinds of questions and he's forced to talk
in generalities while making "nothing" sound exciting and himself sound
intelligent? They just keep interviewing each other trying to make one
another into experts on what ever is on the screen, all the time saying
nothing... nothing at all.

It seems that the media has become more wrapped up in themselves, for what
ever reasons, fame, fortune, profits, whatever, that they've totally lost
site of the audience. They talk down to us like we are incapable of
understanding or thinking for ourselves. They talk over us useing terms
that they themselves do not understand but use only to try to impress us.
They put themselves on pedistals and then chastize us for not worshipping
them. Watch how they act during elections. Watch how they act during
crisis. Watch how they act during trajedy. "They" want to be the story.
"They" BELIEVE they are the story. The rest of the world simply revolves
around them. Do they have power? No doubt. Are most of us lemmings
though?

I about threw up the other day when MSNBC asked whether Peter Jennings death
would finally convince me to quit smoking. (I don't smoke, never have) And
the took a poll on it. I felt like asking "when did he quit beating his
wife". But for them to think that I should think so much of Peter Jennings
predicament and that his death should make a life changing event occur in my
life? Sheesh! Do they think that they are the only influencing factors in
our lives?? This commercial news media who put so little credance in
accuracy or fairness but so much into the arrogance and self importance and
their expertise that they now interview each other more often than
interviewing credible authorities??

I guess my poorly made point would be that they have convinced themselves
that they can substitute accuracy with arrogance, sensationalism, eliteism,
technology, or simply with numbers. What matters most to them is the
furthest thing from what matters most to the viewer, the reader, or the
listener. I had a FSDO Inspector tell me once that it didn't matter how you
told a student something, it mattered a little more what you told a student,
but what mattered the most was that what you told the student was correct
and that the student understood what you told him. Because, if you get the
last parts right, the first two parts won't be wrong.