…but I still had to write an update to it.
Plan Would Ease Limits on Media Owners
The head of the Federal Communications Commission has circulated an ambitious plan to relax the decades-old media ownership rules, including repealing a rule that forbids a company to own both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city.Kevin J. Martin, chairman of the commission, wants to repeal the rule in the next two months — a plan that, if successful, would be a big victory for some executives of media conglomerates.
Among them are Samuel Zell, the Chicago investor who is seeking to complete a buyout of the Tribune Company, and Rupert Murdoch, who has lobbied against the rule for years so that he can continue controlling both The New York Post and a Fox television station in New York.
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Again, this would be an awful, awful turn of events for the state of the media. Media conglomerates try and play the victim in this scenario and call the rules “antiquated.” The rules are there to keep the media in the hands of many instead of just a few. Sorry if it hurts your pocketbook a little, but some people want a little variety in their news and the comfort of knowing that someone hasn’t cornered the market on every piece of media in an area.
Don’t let this happen. Call your congressman, write a letter or send a carrier pigeon. I don’t think it will happen though, people will protest again just like when Michael Powell tried to do the same thing. Sorry Zell, Murdoch and the rest, you’re just going to have to settle with billions in profits instead of hundreds of billions. Excuse me if i don’t weep for you.
According to early reports, writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are being paid $8 million to write the sequel to Michael Bay’s Transformers. The pair wrote the first movie as well as Michael Bay crapfest The Island and the J.J. Abrams directed Mission Impossible III.
How hard is that?
CITY - EXT. DAY
Buildings are blowing up, people are screaming and cars are flying through the air. We see our hero running hand-in-hand with the female lead while a slow-motion explosion chases behind them.HERO
Come on, we need to get to the end of the screen to put OBJECT A into OBJECT B or the villains win!FEMALE LEAD
You're right hero, we need to go now! But first.We pull back as the two main characters embrace and kiss at the most inappropriate time, explosions engulfing them in chaotic beauty.
Cue music consisting of either current hip-hop star or rock-rap duo.
Where’s my $8 million damn it!
Walking Sports Database Scorns Walking Sci-Fi Database
PASSAIC, NJ—Scott Moreland, a walking database of sports facts and figures, scorned Tim Dansby, a walking database of science-fiction anecdotes and trivia, Monday afternoon."God, what a friggin' geek," said Moreland, eyeing Dansby in the food court of Willowbrook Mall. "Saturday nights, I bet he gets together with his other geek buddies and whacks off to Star Wars on video. He's probably never even gotten laid."
Moreland, a 27-year-old bachelor who spends most Saturday nights watching ESPN and checking for injury updates on CNNSI.com, then left the food court and headed to The Fan Zone, where he browsed a rack of extra-large New York Giants jerseys.
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I am so applying for their internship when I feel I am qualified and have enough experience. I can make up fake news all day long.
One day this will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine.
Or if not that one, one of the other dozen or so fellowships out there that dole out between $50-60K and allow you to take classes and spend 8-10 months being awesome. Sure, I’ll take that.
The catch: You’ve got to work your ass off to earn it.
I say bring it on.
So Channel 6 called last night and asked me to throw them a bone regarding the meningitis story. I did.
It has now been picked up by everyone locally. Sweet!
The Columbia Journalism Review has an excellent archive of newsroom photos. Something about these fascinate me, most likely because I hope to be working in one of these crazy, cluttered places one day. Here’s a few.
The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, North Carolina. Photo by Sean Hemmerle.
MSNBC. Secaucus, N.J. Monday, January 6, 2003, 4:25 p.m. Photo by Sean Hemmerle.
The New York Post. New York City. Wednesday, November 20, 2002. Photo by Sean Hemmerle.
The Village Voice, New York City. Photo by Sean Hemmerle.
Visit CJR for more. Oh, and they have great journalism articles too.
This was a breaking news piece that I had about two hours to gather information and write. I was pretty proud of myself. Front page again, I’m three-for-four.
Funny though that after my article on how prevalent meningitis isn’t in the student population, some kid gets it. Does that make me look like a bad journalist, or just the people that I interviewed?
Sorry, I couldn’t help it.
Tomorrow I’m covering some breaking news that relates to another article. Awesome.
p.s. Please no one point out the errant comma in the fifth graf, it was an editor’s mistake, not mine. It has been corrected in the online version.
Bridging the gap – UCF professor works to make computers adapt to users
The editors chopped it a bit but that was to be expected. I turned it in at over 1,000 words, which is taboo in the college circuit. Damn child pornographers, if that kid could have held off getting caught I might have gotten page 1 treatment. Oh well.
I was wrong, it’s on the front page, feature story.
While researching an article on augmented cognition I came across this ad for Singapore:
Now the tagline is “Where great things happen.” What the hell are they trying to tell me here? That giant, transforming, laser-shooting robots attacking while children look apathetically at a Game Gear is a good thing? Those Iron Giant-wannabes aren’t exactly inviting nor do they make me want to visit Singapore. What they do is make me think that Singapore is after my energon and that we might need to keep an eye on them.
Burning chili sparks terror fear
Firefighters wearing protective breathing apparatus were called to D'Arblay Street, Soho, after reports of noxious smoke filling the air.Police closed off three roads and evacuated homes following the alert.
Specialist crews broke down the door to the Thai Cottage restaurant at 1900 BST on Monday where they discovered the source - a 9lb pot of chillies.
The restaurant had been preparing Nam Prik Pao, a red-hot Thai dip which uses extra-hot chillies which are deliberately burnt.
Wow, this is truly amazing. Has the world become so scared of itself and reactionary that even spicy food can cause us to call out the HazMat suits? This is about as ridiculous as it gets and if things keep going as they are soon people are going to be afraid to even step out of their front doors. Thanks ‘War on Terrorism’ and knee-jerk reactionary media, you’ve made the world cowards.
Well, it’s a damn good thing that this sort of thing can’t happen here.
SkyNET can’t be far off.