Sea of Humanity

News Hounds

“It is the role of a newspaperman, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
- Chicago journalist Finley Peter Dunne

This past weekend, I watched "Bowling for Columbine" and read "Stupid White Men". I had to for all of those poor students in Lynn, Massachusetts. It seems their principal made one of the teachers stop showing Mr. Moore's documentary in class. Now get this, he stopped it, not because of the R rating, but because it was unpatriotic. Ha, ha, and you thought education was suppose to be about discourse and exporing different perspectives. Anyway, I am ready to vote Michael Moore into the President's office when the next election comes around. I wonder if he would let me work for him? Is he one of the only true journalists left?

After my Moore-a-thon, I thought it would be great if everyone started hounding the newsmakers of our country. We could all get police scanners and every time a story breaks we could show up on the scene with our own recording equipment and hound the hell out of them with questions about what they are doing and why? We could ask them why they never ask hard hitting questions, put things in perspective, or really find out WHY things happen. Think how many times the evening news has done an investigative report which just turns out to be a product endorsement. They should be harrassed for that alone. If violence and manipulation in the media doesn't change everyone is going to end up with Mean World Syndrome!

So, grab your digital camera and microphone. I don't think anyone will stop you. Most TV reporters are in public space when doing their remote broadcasts. You should make every attempt to disrupt them - yell, hoot, holler, stand real close behind them. Also, you could tell them the news screws don't have to work so hard and then offer the latest copy of Texas Chainsaw Massacre to air in place of the newscast. I wonder if we could get into the White House Press Pool?

In the meantime, I am going to start a news journal and keep track of all the stories they run on the nightly broadcast of our network news channels. I have a good idea of what the outcome will be, but hey let's at least give them a chance... right? Maybe they will discover the Code of a Journalist.

The above image actually appeared on my television one evening. I'm not even going to tell you what I had asked it.

Posted by Monkeyspit at April 10, 2003 12:22 AM