Wow!!

I just checked my web traffic statistics for this blog (those are fun to look at; if I cared more about the amount of people reading this blog, they'd be depressing, but I mostly just find them mildly interesting) and guess what!!

I don't remember ever seeing anything of note in the past under the traffic sources tab regarding search engines... I kind of doubt that many people are searching for things that answers can be found to on my blog. But imagine this! Today, I looked at the web traffic sources and it seems that someone came to my blog from a bing search about... "what brand of pencil does goren use" (the character from Law and Order portrayed by Vincent D'Onofrio, which I haven't really mentioned much here recently, but I do still like that show) were the keywords. I guess I'm glad to know that someone was able to find the answer to their question on my blog. I'll keep at it, blogging about all the various miscellanea like such that comes to mind.. 

I wonder what compelled whoever it was that searched that to wonder about it. Presumably they were watching Law and Order and the thought came to mind? If you search those keywords in Bing, my blog post on the topic is the third result! Wow! 

If/when I become a famous (or at least mildly notable) journalist, I'll disclose my preferred pens/pencils so people can follow my lead, if they wish, in choice of writing utensils (what kinds of writing utensils does David Fahrenthold prefer? A rhetorical question). Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all.

Peter Sarsgaard and Stephen Glass, what else?

Some news (I use the term somewhat broadly) about a couple things that have been mentioned copiously on this blog in the past. As you may be aware, yours truly is quite the Peter Sarsgaard enthusiast, as well as a... it's hard to think of the proper word here, but let's just say I'm always up for reading about Stephen Glass, Patron Saint of Fabrication.

So, I happened across this one NPR interview with Stephen Glass about a particular article he had written/fabricated. There's another interview floating around on youtube on the same topic, but it's a different one than this NPR one. This NPR one I actually hadn't come across in the past (can you believe it?), but it was interesting to hear. They even have a transcript with the disclaimer "Below is the transcript of the interview. It is here because we did not want to erase history and because it provides insights into Glass, not because we believe he spoke truthfully," but it's interesting to hear him talking so I recommend actually listening to the interview. I also found this about Shattered Glass, which I don't think I had read before, but I honestly can't completely remember, as I've read so, so much about Stephen Glass and all.

Tying these topics together, the Washington Post recently published a list of the 10 best journalism movies. I'll stick to the more notable ones, in my mind, all three of which were mentioned and which I've seen (in fact, they're really the only journalism movies I've seen to date). All the President's Men (no surprises there; that's probably the most famous one of all), Spotlight (fairly recent, and starring Mark Ruffalo, who actually bears a fairly close resemblance to the actual person he portrayed in the movie -- I became aware of this because there was a picture of the actual person in an exhibit in the Newseum, and I realized that hey, that's the guy who got portrayed by Mark Ruffalo in the movie Spotlight!), and.... Shattered Glass (starring Peter Sarsgaard as the editor, and Hayden Christensen as the eponymous Glass. Chloe Sevigny is even is this movie too, as one of Glass' coworkers.) 

Each movie has some commentary about it by a journalist; the relevant ones had commentary from the people portrayed in them: All the President's Men had commentary from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Spotlight had commentary from Marty Baron, who was the editor at the Boston Globe at the time of the events portrayed in the movie (they got the casting pretty accurate for his character as well, as far as physical resemblance goes). I seem to remember reading about Spotlight somewhere that the costume design for the journalists' clothes had them dressing somewhat more snazzily than they actually did in real life. Which is sort of interesting to think about, if you're me; I love to know about those little background details. For All the President's Men, they were very meticulous about making the Post's newsroom look as it actually did at the time of the events.

Anyways, onto the main event here.... Shattered Glass (which I wouldn't mind rewatching, yet again). Chuck Lane gives commentary about this one; he, as I'm certainly very well aware, was played by Peter Sarsgaard in the movie. Some of the notable bits (honestly, that was most of it): he was ashamed that Stephen Glass had been able to fool him and the fabrications were published, instead of being proud of uncovering the fabrications. Apparently, the movie was pretty visually accurate (which is nice to know): "'Shattered Glass' nails that era's TNR office culture, right down to Glass's trademark blue Oxford shirt and khakis." (and how he didn't wear shoes in the office, just socks) Towards the end of the commentary, Lane draws some comparisons between Stephen Glass' use of stereotypes and playing to people's biases and the current political/cultural climate, which is something I've sort of touched on somewhere in the past on this blog, I think. 

I had also lately been thinking about about the idea of a play (or movie) based on recent events in my own life. I guess it could sort of be considered a journalism play/movie, or at least somewhat related to/involving that topic. I had even decided theoretically who could play a couple of the characters (based on real people!)... Peter Sarsgaard as one of them (one of the protagonists, a journalism/English professor) and Wolf Blitzer as the main antagonist (also a professor, but not particularly adept at his job). Which is a bit of a theoretical disservice to Wolf, since he seems like a nice and decent person, and in my theoretical play/movie, he would play the role of an unsavory and nasty character... but as far as physical resemblance goes, I think it's fairly close. As for the other people/characters, I don't know who would theoretically play them, but I have given some thought to the costume design and the set decoration/locations/visual stuff. It would be interesting to be a film director and/or to write a play, and actually have the play performed... 

As far as Peter Sarsgaard goes, the new Netflix documentary series he's in has FINALLY been released. Finally!! So I'm hopefully going to get around to watching that sooner or later, so perhaps expect a review if I'm not too lazy. I've realized that I've gotten to the point where I've seen most of the more interesting looking movies in the filmographies of my favorite actors, so now some of the ones that are left are the ones that seem like they'll be boring and/or bad... which means I can either watch and suffer through those, or find some new favorite actors and start exploring their filmographies... I have to watch Requiem for a Dream again sometime before the end of the month before it leaves Netflix, so I just need to wait until I'm in the right mood for that. It's a great movie, but it's fairly heavy and depressing.

Apologies for neglecting the blog; I've been busy (and sort of lazy) lately... but with the winter break, I hopefully should be having more time to think of (and write) things for this humble blog that no one really reads. If you do read this blog (for whatever reason), I hope you find it interesting.

Plants

Whoa, I haven't blogged for nearly a whole month. Yikes. If I actually had more of an audience I'd be more ashamed about it, but... life goes on. I haven't gotten much written of my own doing for the newspaper either, but I'll blame that (again) on some ongoing internal issues/conflicts/exasperation with the whole beast. I love and hate it at the same time. (or more specifically, there are some parts of it I love, and other aspects that are driving me batty and make me want to scream. Take your guesses at what those might be!) 

Lately, I have been thinking about plants (among other things; the other things I've thought about include stuff like how I've neglected this blog, and Glenn Thrush, but we'll get to that later). The thought came about because I was pondering about what might make a good gift for a certain someone who I regard highly and who deserves a nice holiday/end of semester present from myself and some other people who the present can collectively be from. 

I considered the idea of a plant, but then I started thinking about how not everyone is really a plant person. Not everyone's idea of a good gift is a plant. Not that I think a plant would be a really horrible gift in this situation; it's perfectly decent, just maybe not the exact best choice for the recipient in mind.  

By the time I'm getting around to finishing this post, I've sort of decided on a fitting present (that's not a plant) and have downloaded an app where you grow your own virtual plants, since I don't have a real physical plant at the moment. The virtual plants are... cute and nice, and the app has pleasant ambient music (sometimes I listen to Swedish radio when I'm trying to work on something and feel like hearing something but not necessarily any specific music -- it's pleasant background noise but not too distracting since I don't understand enough Swedish to know what they're saying). Although, I do wish the plants maybe needed  a little more attention than they do. That they were a bit more interactive. Or something like that. But until I can get an actual plant, this is just going to have to do. 

At the moment, I sort of feel a bit like a plant myself, the kind that has those long skinny leaves sprouting out the top of it since that's sort of what it's been feeling like to have my hair as long as it currently is. I kind of wonder how badly it'd turn out if I tried to cut my own hair. 

Also, I saw a picture of lettuce today and it looked pretty, so it would be interesting to grow my own lettuce. And/or decorative cabbages. A citrus fruit tree might be interesting as well, even though they probably wouldn't do so well in this climate unless they grew in a greenhouse or something. 

So there's a little post, finally. It's not particularly spectacular, but at least it's something. Quite soon it'll be winter break so I should have a lot more time to do whatever I want, which could include dedicating more time to the blog than I have been lately. There were a few other things I'm planning/hoping to get done over the break as well, so we'll just have to wait and see if I actually get them done or not! (among them: potentially, dates... if any of the online dating people seem sufficiently interesting enough for me to actually want to take a chance on and go to the effort of spending time with them in person. I decided that in the event it's a restaurant date, I'll pay for my own food if I liked the person/date enough to want to go on another date, but if not and I found the person boring and the date to be a waste of time, I'll leave them to pay... I think that's fair. Naturally, while online dating/going on dates is hit or miss, I think watching Peter Sarsgaard movies is more likely to be satisfying/fulfilling to me. So there are a number of those I should probably try to watch over the coming weeks.)

The Odyssey Online: a frivolous publication

This is a media analysis, sort of? Or a media critique, or something. (I'm the next Brian Stelter, right here!!)

I will admit that at first, it took me a few seconds to remember the correct spelling of "odyssey." Initially, I wanted to spell it as "odessey." 

I briefly mentioned this website in a previous blog post; I believe it was the one where I went on about the idea of a Stephen Glass costume (remember to ask people, "Are you mad at me?"). The website has recently become of slight relevance to me, so I thought I'd go a little more in depth with a full post on it. 

A certain person (who shall remain unnamed) that I know/work with happens to write for this website, I've been informed. Which made me come back to thinking about it, and subsequently, researching it quite a bit.

Along the lines of Thought Catalog or Buzzfeed, it comes across as a slightly more academic version of those websites. Regardless, I would not consider it to be a particularly prestigious website to write for; it's really just a glorified mega-blog with spades of fairly inane and unoriginal content. 

My blog, in contrast, I'd like to think does have a decent amount of original ideas/content, even if some people may consider the topics to be irrelevant (to them, maybe, but not to me -- who wouldn't want to read endless posts about Stephen Glass/etc??).  But I think my posts here are definitely unique, even if there's only a small audience for them.  

Anyways, onto the research. Come to think of it, I think I'm fairly good at that part, among other things. See for yourself: 

Start off with this article from Wired, which sums up the website pretty well. According to this, there's supposedly an editing process, but if you take a look at some of the things that have been published on the website, I'd say that whoever's been editing them isn't very good at their job. 

A number of student newspapers have published opinion articles about this website and they're pretty spot on. My little piece here is just on my blog, but it's in the same vein. These are all worth reading in full (I did, and so can you!), rather than just the particular quotes I've chosen to highlight here.

The Odyssey cheapens writing, cheats students:  "The Odyssey’s low editorial standards raise serious concerns about how millennials consume journalism." I certainly wouldn't call the things that get published on that website "journalism." Writing, yes (not even particularly good writing, necessarily), but not journalism

The Odyssey dilutes journalism: "But websites such as the Odyssey — with more than 30 million monthly visitors, according to the website — only popularize the trend of blog-style entertainment news that adds little to the industry’s integrity." 
"No reporting, no research, just shameless clickbaiting." Again, it's not journalism! Maybe some people consider it to be, but it's not. Writing/media, sure, but not journalism.
"Just because someone wants to write, doesn’t mean he or she has the chops to do it." Oh, definitely. 

Exodus from the Odyssey: from three people who used to write for the website; their reasons behind resigning (imagine that!) "What mattered to my manager wasn’t quality, it was simply quantity, and that was that."
"I never felt like my writing improved, or that I was maturing as a writer. For a platform that advertises its writers as its most important resource, there was little work being done to refine or improve them. At the end of the day, the life of a content-aggregation writer follows a familiar formula: optimism, cynicism, and burnout."

Here's a snarky little thing from the Daily Pennsylvanian. "It seems as though any college student, no matter how terrible their writing or uninteresting their opinion, can use the Odyssey as a soapbox. The sheer lack of quality control and editorial presence begs the question, 'do they let just anyone write for this damn thing?'" 

An open letter to the Odyssey Online: "My largest issue with The Odyssey is that many people don’t see it for what it is — it’s a big blog written by many different writers.
It’s a hub for blog writing — not journalism. Journalism is not taking your life and opinions and stating them without any outside evidence or interaction with others." 

Mass-Produced Online Content Hubs: Exploitative, Not Just Annoying: This one focuses a little more on the fact that the writers are poorly (if at all) paid for their writing, which is sort of an issue, but at the same time, my take on it is that if you're writing for that website, you're probably not writing anything that's worth getting paid for. 

The Odyssey need to rethink its approach to online journalism: "I’m convinced there’s absolutely no editing process, at least judging from the amount of laugh-worthy grammatical errors I’ve stumbled upon. I’m sorry, but if you can’t tell the difference between "then" and "than" or "their" and "there," THEN you shouldn’t consider yourself a published journalist. It’s gotten to the point where my roommate and I have a competition to see who can find the worst Odyssey article, which results in a lot of laughs and lost faith." 

For the heck of it, song of the day: (take your pick!) Psycho Killer (Talking Heads), or Fury (Muse) 

P.S.: I need to finish writing my chalk editorial (among other things!!!) instead of blog stuff like this. Also, in the process of looking up Brian Stelter since I mentioned him at the beginning of this post, I came across this New Republic profile of him that's pretty interesting! 

Happy pre-Halloween -- newspaper nails

There's a TL;DR down there somewhere (CTRL + F) if someone has happened to stumble on this post and just wants to know about how I actually did the manicure without all the personal rambling/background information... 

I've somewhat neglected this blog, no doubt about it. I guess it just means I had other areas to put effort into writing for/about (and also that I've been busy with other life related things). Anyways, here's a little pre-Halloween post. 

A week or so ago, I became aware of this costume, which I personally think is pretty amusing. Apparently some people don't like it, but it's certainly less offensive than some costumes. Anyways, I thought that it would be an interesting costume for me to ironically wear, but I don't think it's worth $55. Maybe half that price, and in which case, I would prefer just regular real news which is more applicable for everyday life/wear. Update: when I went to go look up the link to add here, it looks like the price has now risen to $59 and the costume is also out of stock... 

Two weeks ago, I got motivated/inspired/compelled to finally paint my nails for once, even though the last time I painted them was probably at least a year ago, if not even longer. In the past, I used to paint my nails more often but then I just stopped, even though I've accumulated a ton of nail polish. My favorite brands are essie and OPI, which are fairly commonly available. Butter London is an expensive polish brand that I tried once and I think it's very overrated. 

By yesterday, (two weeks since I had painted my nails previously), they were looking sort of less than fresh, so I decided to do a new manicure. At first I wasn't sure that I had polish remover on hand, but thankfully I found some. I knew that I should have it somewhere, but I just wasn't sure where. I also thought that maybe it was expired since I don't remember the last time I used it, but it worked fine. 

Because I'm starved for attention I thought it would be interesting, I decided to do a technique that I must have read about a few years ago or something but never actually tried out until now. It involves using newspaper to transfer the print onto your nails, leaving a design of whatever words were on the piece of paper you used. The technique is pretty much like how you would apply a temporary tattoo. 

Most of the things I read online said that you need to use alcohol (of some/any kind - I saw rubbing alcohol, vodka, perfume, etc, all mentioned) to transfer the print. Since I couldn't find any rubbing alcohol and didn't feel like wasting perfume (or rather, cologne) in what would undoubtedly result in a fairly strong smell, I decided to give it a go just using plain water, which only one thing I read mentioned. TL;DR, it worked. 

I'm not sure how exactly alcohol is supposed to work better; I think I got decent results just using water. As for the how-to: 

Materials: small dish/bowl, water, light colored nail polish, top coat, paper towel, scissors, newspaper   

1) Paint nails in a light color of your choice (it might even work with something that isn't quite pastel, but still not too dark, like essie's tart deco color)  
2) Cut up 10 (or more, if you think you're going to mess up) pieces of newspaper that will fit on your nails. For average size/length nails, this might be around the size of a postage stamp. Maybe do this part before you paint your nails so you don't mess up the polish while it's still wet/drying. 
3) Lay one of the newspaper pieces in the dish of water and let it absorb for a few seconds. 
4) Lift it out and place it over a dry, painted fingernail. 
5) Fold up the paper towel a couple times and use it to firmly press (like a temporary tattoo) the newspaper onto the nail. I waited about 30 seconds. 
6) Carefully peel the newspaper off; the print should have transferred. 
7) Apply topcoat to seal; try to be careful so the print doesn't smear. 
8) Repeat on the other 9 nails.  
9) [optional - in my case] Enjoy the hopefully good results; hope to impress people you're going to see the next day with your manicure 

If you want to make it sort of... more fitting for Halloween, you can do this and also turn your manicure into a pun of sorts... They sell shirts (and magnets and pins and other items, I think) with this saying at the Newseum: if it bleeds, it leads. It means basically that stories involving violence tend to get good ratings. I came up with this idea after scratching myself, which resulted in a little blood getting on my manicured fingernail, and had a lightbulb moment. I don't know if actual blood (of your own) would work as nail polish, so it's probably better to use a blood colored actual nail polish and add some dripping blood splatters over the newsprint pattern. Although maybe I should try it with my own blood! 

Also, I think maybe nail polish should be more popular among men. There's no reason why they can't have interesting manicures too, even though it's not commonly considered masculine for men to paint their nails. 

(Shh...)

This is my blog, so if I would like to use it to air my personal vendettas, then that's what I'm going to do. Since it's just my blog and I'm not writing in any sort of official capacity, anything goes. T____ convinced me that I shouldn't write something about this for the newspaper, which is fair enough, so I'm writing it here. 

Over the course of... a bit over a week, conditions have deteriorated between myself and my not-boss who thinks he's my boss and that's brought me to the conclusion that I should at least try to get him replaced - I'd be happier if that were to happen. Otherwise, I think that I would be inclined to resign. I shouldn't have to work with someone like that and I think I deserve better. I've just had it with him, I really have. And who would blame me?? 

Anyways, there are a number of points I'd like to make...
a) If I want to meet with other people and ask for/take their advice, I'm perfectly free to do that. I'm my own person and M____ isn't my boss/in control of me. 
b) Unsavory, negative comments like the ones M____ made about me are not very conducive to a positive working environment - who would want to work with someone who's said things like that about you??? I certainly wouldn't.
c) In the 21st century, it helps to be hip with new technology related things.
d) Personality goes a long way. 
e) People skills count.
f) Things would run more smoothly if M___ didn't try to be in charge, which he's not supposed to be. I'm supposed to be in charge. 

Anyways, there are some things that I wanted to get out and which probably best belong on my blog here instead of somewhere else. Shh...  

In other matters, I'm sort of considering doing online dating yet again.. I don't really know why I keep trying, but I do! I think the key is, go into it with low expectations and use it more as a source of amusement/entertainment than anything else.  

An open letter of potential resignation

To Anderson (Cooper), T (names abbreviated for discretion) and M. 

As you may know, at the beginning of the fall semester this year I became the editor in chief of my college's student newspaper. I was pleased about this because I thought that it would be a good experience for me and I would be able to make some steps towards becoming a real actual journalist. 

Unfortunately, some events have transpired that leave me in what I consider to be a rather untenable situation. In my view, the solutions to this are: my resignation, or M___'s replacement. I don't believe that I will be able to work productively and in a positive environment if I continue to have to deal with M___. Therefore, I'm considering resigning to escape what has become a negative work environment. 

Anderson, even though you won't read this, I want to say that this situation (my potential resignation) pains me because I very much wanted to work on the student newspaper and get some journalism experience. It was you who got me interested in journalism in the first place, and I admire you considerably as a journalist and as a person, so it's disappointing that it doesn't seem like I'll be able to pursue that career in the current circumstances. 

Hence, I am considering resigning my position as editor in chief of the student newspaper. Don't get me wrong, I very much enjoy the reporting and journalism side of things, it's just the dealing with M___ part of things that has pushed me to want to resign. I would be perfectly happy if I didn't have to work with M___ and instead had a supportive and non-overbearing/micromanaging adviser. 

T____, thank you so much for all of your incredibly helpful and supportive advice over the past few weeks. I appreciate it immensely. You're a great professor and mentor, in ways that M___ just isn't. Nevertheless, the current state of affairs between M___ and I (which you are also involved in) has made me somewhat inclined to resign as editor. I would be resigning due to the situation with M____, not because I've been turned off of journalism as a career. I still would like to be involved with journalism and try to get some experience in that field, but I just don't think that the way things are right now is the best environment to do so.

M___, I'm sorry, but I just don't really think that things will work out. Just so you're aware, I consider it to have been your attitude that has driven me away. I don't think that I can continue to work with someone who has said such snide things about me and is unwilling to allow me to run the newspaper as I see fit and as I should be able to, being the editor in chief.   

- Rachel, (potentially former) editor in chief. 

Commentary, personal update, Stephen Glass costume

Apologies for the lack of Postsecret reviews; I've been busy with being the editor in chief of the student newspaper. I'm pleased about having that position even though there is a bit of an issue that will need to be resolved/dealt with (although it's not that I did anything wrong on my part). It seems like it would be best to not splash the details of that all over this publicly available (although probably minimally read) blog at this time, so I'll refrain. (If you can imagine a cross between the personality [more or less] of Jon Stewart and the appearance of Glenn Thrush, that is one of the characters involved in this drama, if you will.) 

Anyways, here is a little more commentary and pondering on something. I came across this one website, which is sort of maybe like a bit more intellectual version of Buzzfeed or Thought Catalog, and it's a repository of writing by college students. I looked into it a bit more to see if it would be worthwhile to get involved in, but then I found some things that made me reticent. Some people that formerly wrote for the website said that the website exploited their writers and only cared about quantity, not quality of the things the writers were expected to write and it became an unpleasant experience. I think it's more impressive to be editor in chief of the student newspaper anyways, rather than just "I write for this online website that people probably haven't heard of".. 

PS: I have been trying to convince someone I know to wear a Stephen Glass costume for Halloween. It would consist of clothing like this (remember to take your shoes off indoors and walk around in your socks, and of course don't forget to go around asking people "Are you mad at me?"): 

Interestingly enough, about 16 years later (I assume the previous picture was taken around 1998), here is Stephen Glass in a very similar outfit (old habits die hard, I guess. Although hopefully he did manage to kill his fabrication habit): 

And here we have Hayden Christensen (such a fun name!) in the perennial Stephen Glass blue shirt from the movie Shattered Glass (which I should rewatch!):

While looking for pictures for this last part, I came across this review of Shattered Glass from 2003 in Slate. I actually don't think I read this one in the past (which sort of surprised me, since I have read so, so much about everything Stephen Glass). 

I found this other picture of him as portrayed in the movie Shattered Glass, and I noticed a little something about the costume design. The (mostly blue colored) shirts that Stephen wears in the movie have a fairly billowy fit to them (and I do realize that was the style in the back then, compared to nowadays). But, if you look closely, they also are too big for him in the shoulders. I think that was a nice touch by the costume department people, to convey his youth and insecurity, among other things.   

Media commentary

I'm not sure if this can be called media analysis, but at the very least it's just my opinions on something I happened to read/see earlier today. I was going to write a post about it then, but I was tired so I took a nap instead. Now I'm awake again and will get to this. Skip to paragraph 7 if you want to get to the point of what I had originally planned to make this post about. Read paragraph 6 for some intro to that. 

This isn't the main topic of this post, but I was reading about the Atlantic magazine since that's a magazine I think is interesting even though I don't read it as often as some other publications. On the Wikipedia page it shows a list of editors and one of them was Michael Kelly, which I sort of knew but hadn't really thought about. He was the former editor of the New Republic when Stephen Glass was there, but it was Kelly's successor who uncovered the fabrications. So, after leaving TNR, Kelly goes to the Atlantic, but in 2003 he got killed covering the Iraq War. Wikipedia also mentions that criticism of him focuses on his support of the Iraq War, which I didn't really know about, and how he supported Stephen Glass even though Glass later turned out to be a serial fabricator.

I'm not quite sure what to think about that, in that it's unfortunate that he got killed, and I recognize the value of covering such things, but at the same time, that whole war was a mistake and had it not happened, he wouldn't have gotten killed covering it. Although at the time I was too young to really know about and have an in-depth opinion about the war, in retrospect, my opinion is that it was bad and a mistake. Although on the other hand, George Bush was less awful at presidenting than Donald Trump is, so...  

At the Newseum, which I've been to in the past, they have an exhibit about journalists who were killed, which I remember seeing, but the last time I went there I wasn't really aware of specific journalists who had been killed. But I guess Michael Kelly's name would be there. 

Also, I was looking at the website for the Weekly Standard magazine, which is a conservative publication. Other conservative news websites are the Daily Caller, which eyelashes guy previously wrote for, and the Federalist. TNR in comparison is a liberal magazine.  Anyways, the Weekly Standard had an advertisement that offered a free American flag lapel pin to people who subscribed.. typical conservative thing to do, it seems. TNR had a table at some book festival recently and gave away TNR tote bags. That would be a nice thing to have. And more useful than a lapel pin. 

So, on to the main topic which I had intended to write this post about. Talk about burying the lead. (I think I'll try not to get too jargon-y here. Does it come off as pretentious? I really shouldn't be worrying if that comes off as pretentious considering how I've gloated about being the editor in chief of the student newspaper...) Regardless, since it's just my blog and I get to decide what I want to write and how I want to write it, I don't really care too much. This blog is for my thoughts and that's what I'm going to write about, even if they are less than ideally organized. 

Anyways, Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold, who has a cool last name among other things (which I've mentioned before), retweeted this tweet today: 

"@kelseyjharkness:You know, cause there's nothing else going on in this world that's worth reporting about. [with a retweet of Fahrenthold's tweet about an article clients that Donald Trump has lost, meaning organizations who aren't holding events at Trump properties anymore]" 

Ms. Harkness [for the record, I say that semi-sarcastically, rather than imitating the NYT's style of referring to people] turns out to be a reporter for some small-ish (in that I'd never heard of it before) conservative news organization, the Daily Signal. A clever reply to this tweet was: "You know, cause all sorts of things can be reported on at the same time. Don't need all stories to be the same," to which Kelsey Harkness said (sanctimoniously) "I think it's sad that someone like me at a tiny news org has to uncover these things. They're being overlooked by MSM." regarding some story she did about a failed program in Kentucky that was attempting to create new technology jobs. 

Her report on said story was a 7 minute video (which, if you're going to watch, set it to 2x speed so you waste less of your time; it's subtitled so you can just mute the sound and read the subtitles at a more efficient pace) which I watched in the name of being open minded, although afterwards, decided that it was sort of a waste of my time (sorry, lady. I think reading eyelashes guy's columns is enough conservative open-mindedness for me). The video is basically a criticism of the program's failure to create the 200 jobs it was supposed to. It's worth noting here that perhaps I'm approaching this with some inherent bias (in that I view the video report negatively) of my own due to the fact that the source of the video was not a reputable news organization of the likes of WP/etc. 

I think a major point that wasn't even touched on in the video was the whole why the program failed. Instead, the video just criticized the program for having been a failure. Which, in my opinion, makes the video report a bit of a failure itself because it only approached the issue on a superficial level: the program was a failure. Okay, and...? The why (ie: reason[s]) seems like it's kind of a pretty big part here. The only hint of thinking about why the program failed actually came in a sort of offhand comment from one of the people interviewed for it, rather than the reporter. 

It... is sobering to think that I can figure something like that out but this lady has a freaking job and didn't even touch on that in her video. I think that's partly a failure on her editor's part: if I were an editor (and actually, I am!! [albeit on a small scale]) and I got an article from one of my staff that I thought wasn't thoroughly reported, I'd tell them to go back and fill in the missing information. Some real journalism basics here, people: who, what, when, where, why.  Even though that seems pretty much like common sense (you would think), at least to me, a little thank you to my journalism professor last year who has a great personality, for one thing, and also made sure to cover that in his class. Come to think of it, I could use this video as a teaching tool for when I (or at least I plan to) give my presentation/lesson about some basic journalism skills to the people who will work on the student newspaper with (but also subordinate to) me.  I could show it to them and say, how could this report have been improved? What is it missing? Maybe I'm sort of cut out to become a teacher, possibly. I'm not too bad at the whole writing thing though, if I do say so myself. 

Back to the tweets, there were (a lot of) others that I'll highlight here: 
"I just wish there was a way we could report more than one story at once. But I guess that's just the way it is" In reply to that, there's a tweet from Harkness asking what the national significance of Trump's private businesses losing clients is. Well, he's president, for one thing. I think that's pretty nationally significant. Another bit of journalism basics here: what makes something news. The fact that this relates to Trump, who is the president, makes it news. Because he's the president. From Wikipedia: "News stories also contain at least one of the following important characteristics relative to the intended audience: proximity, prominence, timeliness, human interest, oddity, or consequence." I know I have a summary of these things in my notes somewhere. 

"yes, just as there are no other reporters besides david, kelsey." 

(a series of tweets) "Hey Kelsey! What's your next big story on?
 Her last big scoop was how Obamas program on encouraging coding in coal states didn't work out. Lol.
 And she's throwing shade at a dude whose last big scoop...won the goddamn @PulitzerPrize" 

"It figures that @heritage [the organization behind the Daily Signal] isn't bothered that a (sometimes) conservative POTUS is using his office to enrich his personal business." 

"Now you're telling real journalists what to report on. That's funny 😹"

"You know, cause if the #GrifterInChief does enough big stuff, the smaller stuff should get a free pass. For the record, I'm still reeling from typing "cause," but i didn't want to throw off Kelsey with... you know, grammar and stuff."

"We all know the federalist isn't about to check in on conflicts of interest with Trump's presidency."

"You know, the man won a Pulitzer this year for his reporting. Seems capable of finding and reporting a story without your help or criticism."

"Everyone has their niche. His is exposing Trump. Yours seems to be nonsense."

"Ever notice it's the hacks that get upset over people doing actual journalism?"

"Is there a shortage of reporters to cover other stories?"

"Until Trump is more transparent regarding his money and businesses, yes, this is valuable quantitative data that is worth reporting."

"Spoken like someone who voted for this grifter but doesn't want to be reminded!" (I like this one)

"You know, cause the @washingtonpost is ONLY reporting on this, nothing else..."

"For a reporter, you don't seem to understand how this whole journalism thing works." I can agree with that!

"It must be hard to be a reporter if you think there can only be one story. Good luck with that."

"You know, there is more than one reporter in the world. That way, many different stories can be covered."

"I forget--who got a Pulitzer??"

"are you his assignment editor?"

"I subscribed to WPO because of @Fahrenthold ! And I'm Canadian. Yeah Dave! Trump is a con man and should be exposed by every reporter."

"TFW you criticize a journo for not covering a significant topic when his last significant story won him a Pulitzer."

"yes, and clearly David is the only reporter in the world..."

"Says the lady who writes for The Daily Signal, and The Federalist. What a joke." 

"Didn't David win a Pulitzer?"

"Interesting to see reporter of dubious news organization questioning editorial judgment of one of the print medias great institutions"

"Yeah, I mean he's only gotten a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on this stuff. What a pointless exercise."

As you can tell, I found the tweets pretty amusing. 
  
To end this, here is a little something that lacks flavor but is about journalists who fabricated (and who I've mentioned in the past, profusely) that came up when I googled "unethical journalism." I think that my writings on this blog about this subject matter are, at the very least, more interesting/entertaining than this article here because I have included my thoughts and speculation and opinions as opposed to a dry and unsympathetic summary of the topic. I think that what Stephen Glass did about 20 years ago was bad and journalistically unethical, but it's less nefarious than the proliferation of fake news that pervades the country today. Did Stephen Glass' stories influence an election and give the presidency to a [insert various negative descriptions of Trump. I couldn't decide on just one]? I think not. 

I wish I could get paid for all (or rather, some - not sure people would really care about the whole Peter Sarsgaard thing, but I feel like there might be something there with the media analysis of sorts) this (gestures to blog), you know. I feel like at least some of it is, or could be, sort of worthwhile for other general people to read (albeit perhaps with some editing/polishing, which I would probably do/have done if I knew I were going to publish something in an outlet other than my blog).  I mean, hey, look at certain people who are writing about entertainment for Buzzfeed or other websites of the like.. they've got jobs and they're getting paid. Maybe I'll make a new, more professionally oriented blog where I can post some polished up (and with the more irrelevant [ie, about Peter Sarsgaard or whatnot] portions removed, if applicable, because sometimes I do mention multiple things in one post) versions of some of the things I've written about here.. I think I really hit it out of the park with this post, minus the stuff at the beginning which wasn't the main point. I think I made some good points. 

As far as journalism goes, shorter paragraphs are better, which I've sort of been trying to practice re: my blog posts, but I'm not too serious about it. Me and short paragraphs in blog posts aren't really friends. Although in actual articles I do try to keep things more succinct and with fewer random thoughts and tangents. This paragraph actually turned out to be fairly short compared to some. 

Postsecret review 14

Yikes! I almost ran out of time to get to this one! Anyways, here it is. 

"My roommate is a drug dealer. I steal weed all the time and don't feel guilty because he always eats my cheese." I can... understand being irritated by a roommate eating your food. Me personally, I wouldn't get back at them by stealing their weed to smoke for myself, since I'm not interested in that, but maybe I'd sell it and keep the money. 

"What on earth are we even here for? I have no faith." That's a really pessimistic outlook on life. Just because this secret writer apparently feels that their life has no purpose doesn't mean that everyone's life has no purpose. For example, I got this one particular email that made me happy and feel better about my life in general, in a way, while also causing me to be annoyed about something else related to the subject matter of the email.  

"I have been married for years, yet often dream about a man I have never seen or met. I am convinced he is my soulmate and wonder if The universe will ever bring us together." I can't speak to the content of other people's dreams, but the only people who have repeatedly showed up in my dreams are people I know/am aware of and think about. 

"Whenever I'm nervous my mother tells me "it's always worse than you think!," just to make me laugh." That doesn't seem like it would be a very reassuring thing to hear. Maybe that's just me. 

"I've finally realized that sometimes you lose the good things in life to make room for the great things." with a picture of a person sitting down in front of a rock formation that I think is somewhere in Utah. So that leads me to speculate what kind of good thing could've been lost and what great thing replaced it:

"I GAINED 20 POUNDS THIS YEAR I tell all my friends I'm trying to lose it, but really... I LIKE MY NEW CURVES" I feel like gaining 20 pounds would just make me feel fat, not 'curvy.' Maybe this person is taller than I am and so 20 pounds wouldn't look quite so fattening. And/or maybe they were really skinny beforehand and it's more of a difference compared to their former body type. 

"Hollie - your job does not entail reading POST SECRETS All DAY! Go Back to work!" Ooh, I like this one. I wonder how awkward this situation was like for 'Hollie' and whoever wrote and sent in this secret. 

"When I go backpacking, & I pass people on the trail, I judge them based on the gear that they have." This seems sort of like something I could see myself doing.. I think there's no harm as long as you aren't saying your judgmental opinions to the people's faces. Maybe it makes you sort of shallow and judgmental, but that's your problem, not anyone else's, and if they don't like it, they can associate with other people. 

"I was in a relationship 
With another man 
Until he told 
The preachers 
Of my church

Which got me kicked out" 
Maybe this one was an attempt at poetry? I wonder if this guy was a Mormon or if it was some other religion that he got kicked out of.

"I have my MBA. I make minimum wage as a bookseller. I am Above & Beyond happy." I don't think I would be happy in this situation of making minimum wage since I don't think that would be enough money to live comfortably unless I lived in some cheap rednecky place and even then, the minimum wage would possibly be lower than it is here, so it still probably wouldn't be so good. Unless I were married to some rich person who could support me financially. Although I'm not sure I would like that kind of dynamic in a relationship.

"It hurts too much to watch you guys while sober" over a collage of Steelers related pictures. That's an interesting sentiment. I've never been interested in sports enough to feel like that about any team. 

"I don't like a lot of the women in my sorority." Then why did you join?? I wouldn't join a sorority if I didn't like a lot of the women in it. 

That's it for this week. The secrets were alright but I think they could've been better. Regardless, I'm glad I got to it in time even though I was really late. I'll chalk it up to being preoccupied about an ongoing situation in my life that has been annoying me. 

Media analysis, Peter Sarsgaard, and Stephen Glass

This post doesn't quite have a cohesive theme; it's about a variety of things. One thing is the various tv shows/movies that are upcoming and, to me, in some way or another, noteworthy. In later September, Jake Gyllenhaal's new movie where he plays a guy whose legs get blown off in a terrorist attack will be released. I know I've certainly thought about that movie a decent amount, but I'm not sure that that'll translate into me actually going to see the movie. We'll just have to wait and see. Then, in other Gyllenhaal news, Jake's sister/Peter Sarsgaard's wife, Maggie, is in a new HBO series that seems sort of interesting but since I don't subscribe to HBO it's not conveniently available to me. It's about prostitutes in 70s NYC. The other HBO series I'd like to see sometime are Oz and the Wire. Peter, husband of Maggie and brother in law of Jake is also in an upcoming Netflix series about the CIA's MK Ultra experiments, which should be fun. That's released in mid December, which seems like a long time off and I really wish it were going to be released sooner! Plus, Grey's Anatomy should be back on soon-ish and we can see where things will go from where they left off last season. Then, there's some other Hulu series (also related to the CIA, but more recently) that Peter is in but I still haven't become aware of any release date on that. 

That aside, I watched some media analysis videos earlier that compelled me to comment on them. One was about how coverage of terrorism in the media affects people's perception of how frequent/likely terrorism is. The conclusion from that is basically that it's not so good for the media to cover terrorism in the way that they do, which is, when it happens, quite thoroughly. The video mentioned how it's very hard to stop watching coverage of terrorism on television, which I can agree with. However, it also said that such actions cause people to become more paranoid of terrorist attacks and have a generally overall negative impact. Me personally, I don't feel that watching tv coverage of terrorist attacks has negatively impacted me. In fact, I find it quite interesting in a morbidly fascinating way. Not that I'm saying I wish terrorist attacks would occur so that the news is interesting. 

The second video criticized the way that the media has covered Donald Trump, saying that the media has made him and his abnormal actions seem too normal. Basically, the takeaway from that is that Anderson and Co. should eschew calmness and at least the pretense of objectivity, and instead take after Keith Olbermann's semi-screamed rants when covering the administration. (Not that I necessarily disagree with the things Keith Olbermann says in his videos, I just think he's pretty shouty and to some, probably comes across as fairly radical) This video happened to mention how Anderson garnered praise for his "emotional" (look it up) coverage of hurricane Katrina 12 years ago, implying that similar emotion should be exhibited by news anchors now when covering all the latest political events, which I thought was sort of interesting. I would say/hope that any person with a brain (a full brain, not just half a brain) would be able to realize that even through the veneer of calm voiced news anchors, the things that Donald Trump does are outrageous and not normal. So there's my analysis of some media analysis for the day. I guess this counts as critical thinking? As do the things I think about Peter Sarsgaard and Stephen Glass, among others?  

Then, back to Peter Sarsgaard, he recently gave this interview (published today, in fact!) about that Netflix documentary series he's in. It was an interesting interview but I really wish it had been an audio or video interview because I just love the way that he talks. It might be even more interesting when I have the context of having actually watched the series that it's about.

Now, here are some things related to Stephen Glass/the movie Shattered Glass that I haven't talked about yet here on this blog. The never-ending saga continues! It's the gift that keeps on giving, I tell you. Get back to me in a year and see if I'm still blogging about Stephen Glass. I wouldn't be surprised if I were. 

I'll start with this one, (edit: I apparently forgot to add the link here earlier!) which is partly about Jonah Lehrer, an author who did some self-plagiarism and made up (the fancy term would be "fabricated") Bob Dylan quotes in some (non-fiction) books he wrote. It also mentions Stephen in tandem with Jonah Lehrer. The title of this article is an amusing one to me: "Go away, Jonah Lehrer: Stephen Glass, James Frey and the white guy literary forgiveness project" The subtitle is "These days, deceitful writers can turn a profit off their sins almost right away. It's a gross lesson" since all of these people wrote books. I actually, years ago, did end up buying the book by the last guy, which (since I haven't read it) as far as I'm aware, is supposed to be about his journey from being a drug addict. However, it turned out that he made some things up/embellished things in the book but passed it off as things that had actually happened to him. At the time I was fairly young and in retrospect, might have been a bit young for reading books with the subject matter of a person's struggle with drug addiction..  I did some googling and it says the paperback edition was published in 2005, so I guess sometime after that is when I bought the book. It was from Costco, I remember that. Back to the article in question, which ponders if "the punishment for betraying readers’ trust [has] gotten lighter since 1998, when Glass’ fabrications came to light?" I couldn't really say. 

Some of the other highlights: "For Rosin’s [the former colleague of Glass and author of the 2014 article about him in the New Republic] generation of journalists, the Stephen Glass saga was probably the one that has most shaped and disillusioned them, but for writers my age, Frey’s story is the one that changed us forever. Probably for younger writers and readers, Lehrer’s story has similar significance. For me, at least, Frey’s re-acceptance into the literary mainstream was the moment when I learned the important but heartbreaking lesson that morally sound guys often finish last. Frey taught me that, at least if you’re a white man with charisma and talent, there’s almost nothing that can, long-term, keep you from making a living in the business of words." [emphasis mine] 

This is actually the paragraph right after the previously quoted one, but I wanted to break them up for ease of reading: "Well, what are disgraced writers supposed to do, slink off into the shadows forever? Though it’s the only solution that would fully satisfy the people who, like me, have trouble forgiving, it’s not realistic. They still have to live, after all, and often writing and publishing are their only potential career paths.  But I found it telling and ultimately cheering that the intervening years have finally led Stephen Glass to eschew writing and to pursue another career path; forsaking his gifts in that realm seems to me like an appropriate punishment for misusing them so egregiously." [emphasis mine, again] 

The last sentence of this paragraph ^ I thought was particularly interesting because I do wonder what it would have been like if Stephen Glass had not eschewed a career in writing (either factual journalism or fiction) after his professional unraveling. The author of this article mentions that she has trouble forgiving these various writers who lied/misled their audiences, but I (as is perhaps evident) don't really have that issue. I mostly can only speak regarding Glass since he's the one I've really read up so, so much about, but I don't harbor any strong negative feelings towards the other authors mentioned who lied and misled people. (Maybe I would if I were more familiar with their misdeeds?) After this, she mentions how it's harder to forgive Frey and impossible to forgive Lehrer because they both continued to write books (and profit from their writing) after their prior misdeeds regarding plagiarism/fabrication/etc. Me personally, I find it sort of... regretful??, in a way, that Glass ruined his journalism/writing career (disregarding the comments from some that I've read that claim he wasn't actually a good writer and needed lots of editing/rewriting) and never really went back to doing anything in the realm of writing/journalism after writing the book that was a lightly fictionalized account of his fall from grace. I think it would've been interesting to read more things (factual or fictional, as long as he's not trying to pass one off as the other) that he might have gone onto write. As far as considering the fact that Glass didn't return to writing to be a "punishment", I thought that was an interesting take on it. I can't really say to what degree said "punishment" was self-imposed; again, that's something only Glass would really know and it goes back to one of the things I'd want to ask him if I could: does he wish he could return to journalism? I guess, some speculation here, if he really wanted to, then maybe he would have tried, and since he hasn't, we can assume that he's happy working at a law firm albeit not being a lawyer. Just speculation, though. It also reminded me a bit of some other article I read and have linked in the past about how journalists who commit journalistic sins shouldn't be exiled from the profession and should instead be rehabilitated. I think this was also the same article that mentioned that even if he didn't (theoretically return and) do really serious journalism, he could still do lighter stuff like reviewing television shows and such and that would be interesting to read.  

Honestly, if that lady can write an article about such topics of disgraced writers/journalists and have it published on some website (Salon, in this case), then why can't I?? I mean, just look at all the various stuff I've written on this blog. Surely at least some of it (perhaps with some polishing/revision) could be right at home on some website or other. I look at the stuff that gets published on websites and think, I could write stuff like that.. In fact, in the case of the aforementioned article, I do write stuff like that. 

Anyways, onto the second thing about this topic. I came across this article/interview with the filmmaker who directed Shattered Glass, and it was an interesting look into a bit of the production/behind the scenes thoughts that went into the movie, which I liked. If I ever direct movies or am involved with making them, I would want my thoughts about that whole process to be known in case anyone was curious, like I am. I really should try to get around to rewatching this movie sooner or later. It was nice. 

I looked up the word counts on some of my previous posts because I was curious, since that can be sort of relevant in writing articles in journalism. The one about the documentary review was just about 500 words, and the most recent one about Stephen Glass was about 1500 words, I think. And that was only those two blog posts. So I'm definitely pumping out a lot of text here, it seems. And these blog posts are just my various random thoughts! I guess I have a lot of thoughts. Maybe I have more thoughts than the average person?? I have no idea. Or at least I guess I feel more compelled to write down/type out those thoughts and send them out into the ether that is the internet. Maybe I should do a story about that: "What/how many thoughts do you have in a day??" and "Look at my thoughts, here on my blog. What do you think of them? Do you think they're abnormal or there is an abnormal amount of them??" Maybe the better question is, why do I (and not necessarily everyone else out there) feel compelled to transfer my thoughts out from existing only inside my brain to a blog?? I also happened to think about capitalism and education today, among other things.  And I finally cut my nails part way through typing up this post because it was getting annoying to type with how long they had been previously. 

Documentary series review: The Confession Tapes

This is a newly released Netflix series that incidentally happens to be right up my alley. It is about people who falsely confessed to crimes while being interrogated. The subject matter of murder as well as interrogation is one of my favorites, so naturally I thought this series would at least be sort of interesting, even though I don't really watch any of the other original Netflix series. For example, you'd think that the one they did a couple years ago, Making a Murderer, would've been interesting to me but I tried watching that and found it to be boring.

I started watching the last episode of this series first since they're all about different cases so it doesn't really matter too much which order I go in, and the last one seemed like the most interesting case. So far this is the only one I've seen, but as I watch the others I'll probably add my commentary about them to this review as well. The last episode is about a man who drove his car into a river, killing his 4 children. According to him, it was a tragic accident and not an intentional murder. After about 8 hours of interrogation, he is coerced into confessing. The confession is declared inadmissible as evidence by a judge, so he goes to trial, where the jury convicts him. Incidentally/unfortunately, the judge happens to be unsure of the man's actual guilt when he goes to do the sentencing. He gets sentenced to multiple life sentences without parole. 

I think this would definitely make an interesting movie concept for Peter Sarsgaard to be in as the father who drives the car and ends up killing his children, then gets coerced into confessing that he did it on purpose. It wouldn't be a completely foreign territory as far as subject matter goes for Peter; he's played other murderers. Maybe I would change some elements in this theoretical movie and make it involve a death sentence like his role in the Killing since that could play to how Peter Sarsgaard is opposed to capital punishment. I kind of want to rewatch the season of that show that he was in since it was definitely good acting from him, but it was just so heavy.. I do sort of wish that Boys Don't Cry had gone a little more into the aftermath of the murder; the arrest and a bit of the legal stuff regarding Peter's character being the murderer. That's all relegated to some screens of text at the end. 

So, more to come on this as I watch the rest of the episodes, and, wouldn't this be an interesting subject matter to cover as a journalist, perhaps?? Maybe not right at this moment in my life, but theoretically in the future. 

I should look up which Law and Order episodes dealt with false confessions, since I would think there should at least be a few here and there across the various Law and Order shows. 

Movies I want to rewatch: Requiem for a Dream (back on Netflix, yeehaw!!), Shattered Glass (no surprises there), Experimenter (also not really a surprise), Nightcrawler and Prisoners. 

Prophets and Losses

How many posts have I done about Stephen Glass by this point? I've lost count. As I'm sure is apparent, he is very fascinating to me. I wonder if I could somehow make the subject matter of disgraced journalists to be relevant to something I could write for the student newspaper that I'm now editor in chief of (isn't that great?! And "does that mean I'm on the path to plagiarism and/or fabrication, and ultimately, journalistic disgrace??"). Or maybe I should just keep that kind of content to my blog here.

The title of this post comes from an article he wrote (and at least partially, if not entirely, made up) for Harper's Magazine. Until recently, when I realized that since I'm enrolled in college, I have access to research databases, I hadn't been able to read this article in full, which was a point of contention for me. Thankfully, that realization occurred to me and I set about to looking up this article, "Prophets and Losses", which I was able to find and read in full, finally.

The article is about Stephen Glass' purported experience being a phone psychic for a period of time. Incidentally, if you think about it, this kind of job would actually have been rather fitting for Stephen to have as his main job - he made stuff up as a journalist, and being a phone psychic would've allowed him to do a sort of similar thing - deceive people. In the interview linked later, Stephen gave this absolutely great quote (about being a phone psychic), especially in context of what he did as a journalist: "It's all based on deception, and the problem is that the other side doesn't really know they're being deceived." He also said that he thought non psychics were better at the job, but that people who thought they were actually psychic were more able to live with themselves for being a phone psychic. And he said that he hated himself for the time he claimed to have spent working as a phone psychic. He had/has an alright speaking voice; it's not bad. 

Like I believe I've mentioned/at least touched on (and if I haven't, then I've definitely thought about it) in previous posts, I think at least partly why he did all his lying and fabricating was that he didn't get enough approval/support from his parents, or at least he didn't think he did. This was mentioned a little in the 2014 article in The New Republic that I decided to reread to refresh my memory where he was interviewed by his former coworker about the most recent things he had said about his whole scandal and how his life was going as of 2014. But I guess another part of it could just be attributed to his particular specific personality, which is a psychological thing and I don't think anyone can really deeply know/understand about the intricacies of someone else's personality especially if you don't know said person personally. It raises questions for me (at least) about insecurity and that kind of thing, and I (rhetorically) thought about do I consider myself to be an insecure person, or a fairly confident person?  

He did an audio interview about the article "Prophets and Losses" which you can listen to here (part 1). 

Also, I had been thinking about the movie Shattered Glass, where Hayden Christensen (I had heard someone else's name that rhymed the other day, but it just didn't have the same ring to it that Hayden Christensen does - maybe it's the double rhyme? Hayden Christensen. It's sort of too bad that he didn't really go on to have much of an acting career; he could have theoretically been in some other good movies like Shattered Glass was) played Stephen Glass. I think that was a pretty good casting decision; although the actual Stephen has a bit more of a pudgy face than Hayden Christensen did in the role, I think Christensen conveyed the essence of Stephen Glass well. The movie people got the hairstyle and glasses right, for one thing. If you had only known about Stephen Glass and what he did and not what he looked like, I think you might think that Hayden Christensen is a good fit for that kind of a person. It's hard to imagine Stephen Glass looking like, say, a bodybuilder type of guy. 

As it stands, I think Experimenter and Shattered Glass are the most rewatchable performances of Peter Sarsgaard's. Boys Don't Cry and The Killing were certainly good, but they're fairly heavy in terms of subject matter. Plus, in the former ones, Peter's characters are sort of more likable/pleasant people. The latter ones have him playing murderers/criminals. I think Jarhead is somewhere in the middle; it's not quite as heavy as Boys Don't Cry and The Killing, but it's still about a war. In my experience, I wouldn't consider war movies to be the most rewatchable. Yet, on the other hand, for some reason I find Requiem for a Dream to be quite rewatchable. 

Also, I gained some perspective on the AP Stylebook the other day, which was interesting. It's actually fairly cool, I suppose, to be in the presence of and able to work with people who have formerly been journalists - I would assume there's some more insight I'll gain in the future from that.    

In other sort of journalism related news, Anderson has returned to wearing t shirts (as opposed to polo shirts he had been wearing earlier in the week) and now is wearing a North Face brand jacket; in the past he has worn Carrhart. Either way, both brands are expensive. Awhile back I read some long-ish article about Carrhart as a brand and how it's thought of by the people of so-called middle America, I think. Not that this kind of thing really matters to most people, but it's something I've noticed. It's kind of weird to think about that I have known about/paid attention to Anderson since I was in middle school. So he may be my longest running... person I've paid particular attention to? And I admire him for the job that he's done as a journalist. He is an heir (with a "fancy sounding name" to boot) so he doesn't really have to have a job, but he does. 

Anderson is in Florida as I type this, reporting on the hurricane they're having there. 12 years ago, Anderson got praised (and satirized on SNL by Seth Meyers [which is the only reason I had known about Seth Meyers in the past before he started hosting Late Night], I believe) for his coverage of hurricane Katrina, so maybe we'll get to see some top notch hurricane reporting from him again this time around. I read an article in the Washington Post earlier today about evacuating people from Florida where someone said that although not evacuating might be better in some ways, do they want Anderson Cooper showing up on their doorstep later because they didn't evacuate and people died? Something to that effect. 

In light of the hurricane occurring, I think I'll end this post with the following: Climate change is real, people. If there are some people in Florida who think it's not real and due to that, decided not to evacuate, and because they didn't evacuate, end up getting killed/injured, then maybe they deserved it. (yes, I know that's cold of me to say) And, regarding Stephen Glass, don't do what he did if you're a journalist. (this part should actually probably come after the following part, but it didn't, so just imagine that it does) 

If I somehow have reason in the future to give a speech and it's related to me theoretically becoming/being an at least semi-well known (well known enough to be giving speeches) journalist, I think I would have to thank the following people: Anderson (obviously), first and foremost, then probably my mother for being a Democrat and not a Republican, which I think possibly could be a thing that predisposes people to become journalists? Or rather, more in light of recent political events, if I had been (god forbid) raised as Republican and my family and I became Trump supporters, I doubt that I would value journalism as a career. Then I would probably thank Peter Sarsgaard for having been in a movie that led me to doing some really interesting reading up on an interesting journalism related scandal (and others like it), and by extension, Stephen Glass, for having been the center of an interesting (yet disgraceful, for him) journalism related scandal/event. If I were a different person and had been alive for Watergate, maybe I would also thank the Washington Post journalists who wrote about Watergate and were depicted in the movie All the President's Men. In place of that, I think would be Anderson like I mentioned before. Since this hasn't been something that's happened yet, I can't really say that I would thank this person/people, but if the current political events end in a Watergate-esque manner (journalists uncovering something that leads to impeachment), then I'd probably thank the journalist(s) who broke that story. Seems fair enough.