Striking Distance

[erikred]

I really loathe the SF Chronicle. It's the forced sense of cheery camraderie they add to every story. In some way, I suppose it's meant to make you think of the reporter as your next door neighbor, dressed in a bathrobe, leaning on your fence, cup of coffee in hand, pointing across the street at your suspicious neighbors and listing the juicy gossip of the morning.

Case in point: The SF Chronicle is running a story about Marcus Wesson, the polygamist and suspected mass-murderer, wherein they refer to him as a "man with [a] striking personality." He may have murdered nine people, all family members, and the SF Chronicle thinks the most important thing we need to know about him is that he had a striking personality?

Imagine the SFC tackling "dynamic and enthusiastic overachiever" Jeffrey Dahmer or "charming former painter" Adolph Hitler. Brrrr.

Give me my inverse-pyramid journalism any day of the week; just tell me who, what, where, when, why, and how. Leave the humanization bits for the biographers.

(LJ thinks my link to Darren Hanlon's cool song Punk's Not Dead is too long to fit in the Current Music spot. Fascists.)

Comments

[mkb-cbr.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Chron sucks much ass. Back when I was actually giving them a chance, I found that not only was the writing bad, but they had trouble with the rudiments of sentence structure. I make plenty of goofs in my Live Journal, BUT I AM NOT PRODUCING A FUCKING MAJOR METROPOLITAN NEWSPAPER!!!

It has always struck me as odd that greater San Francisco-- full of educated, cosmopolitan people --would have such poor newspapers. I can't imagine why that would be. (To be fair, the SJ Merc is well done, but the focus is too southbay/silicon valley to float my particular boat.)

In my case, the writing was just too irritating and I gave up on the Bay Area newspapers. The problem is, that leaves me without a good source of local news. Rebecca is the web producer for KPIX, so these days I get my news by talking to her, but when she changes jobs, I am doomed.

[mumbojumble.livejournal.com]

my inverse-pyramid journalism

Was someone an editor of his high school newspaper? :)

I always disliked the Chronicle. Food section is OK, though, for the BART ride into the city. I started subscribing to the New York Times when I lived in Oakland, and haven't stopped since. One can get enough local news by either watching the first few minutes of the 11 o'clock news, or by going online when the urge strikes. Of course, that sometimes will make one hopelessly ignorant of ongoing Californian debates ("OMG, Arnold is the GOVERNOR now!!") but if your friends are anything like mine, they'll delight in telling you everything you don't know.

One thing I have to say in its defense, though, is that the liberal slant is refreshing when one is faced with, say, the "news" stories down here in Arnold country.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

About the only thing i like about the Chron is Ray Ratto.

tiny url, dude

[(Anonymous)]

it rocks.
jean

Re: tiny url, dude

[erikred.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, it also didn't work. I think the title of the song plus the length of the singer's name is the real culprit.

Which Jean is this? I'm dying to know....

Re: tiny url, dude

[(Anonymous)]

there's more than one? dang, erik, introduce us.
www.jeansirius.com/blogger.html

Re: tiny url, dude

[erikred.livejournal.com]

There can never be more than one Jean Sirius in a certain geographic radius at any given time. History folds, space tears, and the angels weep such tears that the elephants holding up the world pace back and forth, and then the turtles holding up the elephants get restless, and then, well, you know, it's turtles all the way down.

By the way, you did know that it's turtles all the way down, didn't you?