Quotulatiousness

September 17, 2011

Rex Murphy: The failure of the media

Filed under: Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:34

This is not the kind of column you expect from a long-time CBC employee. It points out the huge failing of the major media in their reporting about President Barack Obama:

As the bad economic news continues to emanate from the United States — with a double-dip recession now all but certain — a reckoning is overdue. American journalism will have to look back at the period starting with Barrack Obama’s rise, his assumption of the presidency and his conduct in it to the present, and ask itself how it came to cast aside so many of its vital functions. In the main, the establishment American media abandoned its critical faculties during the Obama campaign — and it hasn’t reclaimed them since.

Much of the Obama coverage was orchestrated sycophancy. They glided past his pretensions — when did a presidential candidate before “address the world” from the Brandenberg Gate in Berlin? They ignored his arrogance — “You’re likeable enough, Hillary.” And they averted their eyes from his every gaffe — such as the admission that he didn’t speak “Austrian.”

The media walked right past the decades-long association of Obama with the weird and racist pastor Jeremiah Wright. In the midst of the brief stormlet over the issue, one CNN host — inexplicably — decided that CNN was going to be a “Wright-free zone.” He could have hung out a sign: “No bad news about Obama here.”

On the plus side, however, he did let us know that there were 57 states in the union (although I’m still not sure of the names of the hidden 7).

Decoding book review language

Filed under: Books, Humour, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:17

Have you ever bought a book on the recommendation of a book review, then found it didn’t match up to your expectations? Here is a useful guide to what the reviewer is actually saying:

“absorbing”: “makes a great coaster” @DonLinn Don Linn, publishing consultant

“accessible”: “not too many big words” @MarkKohut Mark Kohut, writer and consultant

“acclaimed”: “poorly selling” @BloomsburyPress Peter Ginna, publisher, Bloomsbury Press

“breakout book”: “Hail Mary pass” @BookFlack Larry Hughes, associate director of publicity, the Free Press at Simon & Schuster

“brilliantly defies categorization”: “even the author has no clue what he’s turned in” @james_meader James Meader, publicity director of Picador USA

“captures the times we live in”: “captures the times we were living in two years ago” @mathitak Mark Athitakis, critic

“classroom-friendly”: “kids won’t read it unless they have to” @LindaWonder, Linda White, book promoter at Wonder Communications

NFL games, week 2

Filed under: Football — Tags: — Nicholas @ 00:10

Last week was not a great result (8-8), but I’ll hope for better outcomes this time:

  • @Buffalo – Oakland (3.0) Sun 1:00pm
  • @Detroit – Kansas City (8.0) Sun 1:00pm
  • Baltimore – @Tennessee (6.0) Sun 1:00pm
  • Cleveland – @Indianapolis (2.5) Sun 1:00pm
  • @Minnesota – Tampa Bay (3.0) Sun 1:00pm
  • @New Orleans – Chicago (7.0) Sun 1:00pm
  • @New York (NYJ) – Jacksonville (9.5) Sun 1:00pm
  • @Pittsburgh – Seattle (14.5) Sun 1:00pm
  • @Washington – Arizona (3.5) Sun 1:00pm
  • Green Bay – @Carolina (10.0) Sun 1:00pm
  • Dallas – @San Francisco (3.0) Sun 4:05pm
  • @Denver – Cincinnati (4.0) Sun 4:15pm
  • Houston – @Miami (3.0) Sun 4:15pm
  • @New England – San Diego (7.0) Sun 4:15pm
  • Philadelphia – @Atlanta (2.5) Sun 8:20pm
  • @New York (NYG) – St. Louis (6.0) Mon 8:30pm

Last week 8-8 (6-10 against the spread)
Season to date 8-8

This week in Guild Wars 2 news

Filed under: Gaming — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:07

I’ve been accumulating news snippets about the as-yet-to-be-formally-scheduled release of Guild Wars 2 for an email newsletter I send out to my friends and acquaintances in the Guild Wars community.

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