HoodaThunk?

Byron York asks why the press waited so long to cover the Van Jones story.

Says Byron York, Chief Political Correspondent for the Washington Examiner takes a look at the curious incuriousness of certain MSM outlets. Speaking of the infamous “God damn America” sermon spat forth by long-time Obama pastor Reverend Wright, York notes how the New York Times failed to live up to its journalistic duties:

The quote did find its way into a few columns and a (pro-Obama) editorial. But in the news pages — the ones which report “All the news that’s fit to print” — months went by with no word of “God damn America.” It was not until Sept. 24, 2008, six months after the story originally broke, that an article in the Times — it was about anti-Obama political ads — reported Wright’s notorious words. For half a year, the paper’s editors simply ignored a key portion of one of the biggest stories of the presidential campaign.

There is but one reason that an alleged news reporting company would fail to cover such a story the second it came to their attention: they didn’t want anyone to know about it. Unfortunately for them, the days of the folks who buy ink by the barrel being able to make a story disappear by simply ignoring it are over. They didn’t learn the lesson, apparently:

Now, the Times has failed to report another story, this time one that led to the resignation of a White House official much loved by many on the left, “green jobs” czar Van Jones.

Times readers didn’t know it, but the causes for Jones’ departure included the fact that he signed a 2004 petition supporting the so-called “9/11 truther” movement; that he was a self-professed communist during much of the 1990s; that he supported the cop-killer Mumia abu-Jamal; that in 2008 he accused “white polluters” of “steering poison into the people of color communities”; and that earlier this year, speaking to a friendly crowd in Berkeley, Calif., he called Republicans “a–holes.”

Seriously, this isn’t news? If this were a Republican administration and one of the President’s top advisors were found to have signed a pro-KKK petition, were publicly supportive of the efforts of abortion-doctor assassins, and had been involved in organizing a march by a Neo-Nazi outfit, can anyone seriously tell me the NYT wouldn’t have that splashed all over page 1 for over a week? Of course they would, and they should. It’s news.

York asked the question and he posits an answer. It’s more than that these news outfits are biased in favor of Obama (and Democrats in general.) York suggests that its a matter of desperately wanting to avoid granting a “win” to the people they don’t want to be supportive of, even by accident:

The first words of the Times’ story on Jones’ resignation were, “In a victory for Republicans and the Obama administration’s conservative critics. …” One news anchor suggested Jones was “the Republican right’s first scalp.” Other coverage called the Jones affair a victory for Glenn Beck, Fox News, right-wing blogs, and even Sarah Palin, who played no role in the matter.

If you throw in Rush Limbaugh, you have all the bogey-people of the conservative world. To some on the left, including some journalists, denying them a victory was a top priority, no matter what Van Jones had said and done.

That’s the top priority of a campaign headquarters or a PR firm, not a news-reporting agency. Or, at least, it should be.

September 8th, 2009 Posted by ricjames | Politics, The Media | no comments

Would you assist Big Brother pertaining to yourself, if asked?

If someone came up to you and offered you the chance to record virtually everything going on with and around you on a day-to-day basis, would you do it? TechCrunch asks that question with regard to a new tech application called a “Life Recorder.”

Imagine a small device that you wear on a necklace that takes photos every few seconds of whatever is around you, and records sound all day long. It has GPS and the ability to wirelessly upload the data to the cloud, where everything is date/time and geo stamped and the sound files are automatically transcribed and indexed. Photos of people, of course, would be automatically identified and tagged as well.

Imagine an entire lifetime recorded and searchable. Imagine if you could scroll and search through the lives of your ancestors.

Set aside the obvious technology hurdles that would have to be managed for a moment and ponder the question the author asks: “Would you wear that device?”

I’ve got to be honest with you folks and tell you how long I had to consider that question before coming to a solid answer. It was about 0.00000275 seconds. Maybe less. And the answer, edited for a family audience, was “No.” While the technical challenges behind such an endeavor are engaging to a wire-head such as myself, the part about this story that was so stunning to me was the poll conducted (and currently still running) at the bottom of that story.

The question is, “Would you wear a life recorder?” Now, bear in mind that this concept of a life recorder is that it’s running constantly. This isn’t a situation where you take it with you to a party, for example, but you take it off otherwise. Or that you only fire it up in the office, never at home. The concept is that it’s running literally around the clock and is with you all of the time. Asked that question, there have been 4,149 respondents as of the moment I’m writing this. The current break in the poll is running 51-49% against wearing one. But note closely: 49% of those responding are saying “yes” that they would wear the device. I’m curious: would you?

Go have a read for the whole thing and be sure to drop your 2¢ on the poll!

September 8th, 2009 Posted by ricjames | Science, Technology | no comments