Kitsch/Posh

I do not have the capacity to judge Jasper Schuringa’s alleged heroism in the way Stacey Woelfel does.  I also do not necessarily believe that “if someone has an honest story to tell, they’ll do it for free,” thereby indirectly attacking Schuringa’s credibility.  However, I agree with what Woelfel calls “checkbook journalism” and his description of it.  It is not merely a news organization like CNN paying for exclusivity, it is the method in which they choose to do it that makes the practice seem underhanded.

Terms like licensing, picture exclusives, and video rights are ways for these organizations to have their cake and eat it while maintaining plausible deniability.  CNN would never pay for a news story since it is a respectable news group, but it would pay thousands of dollars for access to pictures and videos.  Same difference?  What is more telling about our present state of affairs is how low these organizations seem to be willing to go to get access to a story that is not really “news” in the traditional sense.  At least I can accept that Schuringa’s account is important because he played a role in what could have been a major terrorist attack.*  On the other hand, when there are rumors that NBC gave $300,000+ to Octomom for an interview and confirmation that ABC did pay a substantial fee for “rights” to an exclusive interview with Octograndma (money given to Radar Online, a gossip website), then checkbook journalism should be seen as a symptom of a larger problem in media today.

* I found it odd that right after a later rebroadcast of the interview the anchors warned that CNN could not “independently verify Mr. Schuringa’s account” at the time.  The fact that they are willing to jump the gun to get first dibs on Schuringa’s account is probably a bigger problem than checkbook journalism in this case.

This clip played before the Avatar showing I attended. The advertisement stands at odds with some of the themes presented in the movie.  Without giving too much away, I am referring to the clip’s implication about one’s service in the military contrasted against the “morally correct/incorrect” choices the main characters in Avatar make.   At first I thought it was a mock advertisement akin to the ones shown before Tropic Thunder or the fake movie trailers between the Grindhouse features.  Now I realize that with a name change (and more Autobots and Decepticons) it could easily be the preview for next summer’s blockbuster.

Spotted on a billboard outside a traditionally black church in Crenshaw, a few miles from where I live.  The ad is more poignant given the high levels of violence in South (Central) Los Angeles.

Remember when Sen. Jim Bunning (R-asshole) predicted in February that Justice Ginsburg was going to die in nine months and later had to apologize for it? [Huffington Post]

Well… “Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg taken to hospital” [Reuters]

Now if only he can tell us which lottery numbers to pick… Maybe he’ll just tell us to pick last week’s numbers. [Reuters]

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…except Michael Bloomberg, who gained the most wealth among anybody in the world, because everybody’s looking at their Bloomberg terminals and Bloomberg.com to check out by how much money they’re losing by the minute. [Forbes]