Striking Distance
Mar. 16th, 2004 07:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
erikredI 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.)
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.)
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-16 11:20 am (UTC)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.