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. 

Postsecret review 13

"I thank God every day that I eat what I want and don't get fat" If I were religious, I'd probably thank god as well. I also eat mostly what I wan't and haven't gotten hugely fatter or anything. It's kind of a miracle. 

"The FBI is after me - and it turns me on" That's.. different. I wonder what kinds of crimes this person has presumably committed that would cause the FBI to be after them. 

"Dear patrons who were entitled assholes: I hope you burned your fucking retinas out! - Your Friendly Public Librarian" That's not a very friendly thing to say. But I can relate to the sentiment of wishing that unsavory things would happen to people who I dislike/hate/find annoying/etc for whatever reason. 

"I weigh 416 pounds... My body is a prison. I get no parole... I thought I had good behavior..." I wonder how much I'd have to eat in order to gain ~ 300 pounds to weigh 416 pounds. Apparently, much more/worse than I have been eating, and I haven't even been eating particularly healthily. I wonder what it would feel like to be that fat. That would be a lot of flesh to have on one skeleton. 

"I am at my most judgmental when viewing a wedding registry (why do they expect me to buy them a $300 blender?!?)..." If this person feels so strongly about the bride and groom to be not being worthy of getting gifted a $300 blender for their wedding, maybe he/she should just stay home from the wedding.. 

"I thought divorce was the answer... I'm not any happier now that we're divorced" I feel like it would be quite something to be so... confused about your life that you think divorce is the solution to your problems, yet after actually getting divorced, realize that it didn't fix anything.. That seems like someone who's not very self-aware. 

"I can't believe that in today's world you will not let your daughter date my biracial son. She'd be lucky to have him. You'd be lucky to have us. Don't be a jerk We are good parents and have raised a great kid." This one is sort of passive aggressive, but I can understand being angry about people being racist. 

"I always feel awkward at the end of movies when the credits start to roll. I don't know why." I don't know why either. I like the credits, usually. And sometimes if you're lucky, they'll have a nice song over the credits. 

"I'm not sure if my husband would be more shocked to know that I'm having an affair, or that it's with a paraplegic..." I wonder what circumstances led this person to meeting, and then starting an affair with a paraplegic. And theoretically, would the secret writer leave his/her husband to go and be with the paraplegic?? This reminds me of that odd dream I had about eyelashes guy where he became paralyzed (among other things) and it ended with his wife leaving him because she couldn't take the stress of him being paralyzed and having to cope with that and take care of him. Which is probably sort of a lousy thing to do if one's spouse theoretically becomes paralyzed, but hey, it was a dream. 

"I let my best friend leave for war without telling him I was in love with him, Because I was too scared he wouldn't return." I... sort of don't get the reasoning behind this one? I don't see how it would be particularly awful for this guy to go off to war and know that his best friend was in love with him. Regardless of whether he gets killed in the war or not. Best case scenario, he doesn't get killed; second best, he only gets severely injured (paralyzed? Like in Born on the 4th of July?) but left alive... so morbid, I know. But that's not even considering the potential PTSD. That would probably strain a relationship. Speaking of which, Grey's Anatomy should be returning soon this month!!    

Mr. Fabricator

(I'm kind of running out of titles here about this subject matter..)

Apparently, I just can't get enough of reading even more about Stephen Glass, as well as branching out a little bit and reading up on other disgraced journalists too. It seems that watching Shattered Glass really left an impression on me, or otherwise I probably would've not gone and read so, so much about Mr. Fabricator Stephen Glass. Peter Sarsgaard's going to be in a new documentary series, so I guess that's something else I could go down the rabbit hole about. Who says watching movies can't be a thought provoking activity? I think I've definitely expanded my mind by reading up on the various things (and related topics, as it may be) that Peter Sarsgaard has been in movies about - Stephen Glass, Milgram's obedience experiments... those are the ones so far, but I'll probably read about the CIA experiments the new documentary series is about, and the murder case Boys Don't Cry was based on. I'll get to those. I think maybe most people don't put this much effort into informing themselves about the subject matter of movies they've seen. I guess I could also read about the mobsters in Boston that Black Mass was about. I did watch a documentary about that, so it's not like I haven't gotten at least a little bit into that topic. 

Anyways, in addition to Stephen Glass, I've been reading about other fabricators and/or plagiarists in journalism. Obviously, Glass is the one I've read the most about at this time. I've also read a bit about Jayson Blair, formerly of the New York Times as well as, in his day, editor in chief of UMD's student newspaper. I'll skip over the gloating about my new position for now. Last night, while procrastinating some boring and inane homework, I read about Janet Cooke, who fabricated a story (about drug addicts, nonetheless!) at the Washington Post in 1980. This was sort of extra fascinating because the story in question was on the subject matter of drug addicts, which you know I find to be an interesting topic. For that matter, Requiem for a Dream is back on Netflix, apparently! There's also Michael Finkel, who I still have to read up on, and Jonah Lehrer. I did read a bit about Sabrina Erdely, who is probably the most recently disgraced journalist of this kind. A few years ago she wrote an article for Rolling Stone magazine that eventually ended up being discredited. I had been vaguely aware of this having happened, but at the time I didn't really pay attention to that having been in the news, and before having read a bit about that scandal, I couldn't have told you the journalist's name.  

I found this interesting picture of Stephen Glass that I thought I'd share here. It depicts him, presumably when he was in college, with a sign beneath a window that reads "executive editor." He looks happy. It's an interesting picture, what with the pose and framing; maybe I should take a picture of myself in a similar pose, with similar framing! It could be an allusion.. I wonder if there are any good windows that would be suitable so I can recreate the framing. Windows at approximately neck/chest height... hmm... Nevertheless, I hope that I don't end up as a disgraced journalist like Stephen Glass did. I wonder what this picture was for; was it for any official/publicity purpose or did he just feel like taking a fun picture? Someone had to be holding the camera; whose idea was that pose?? Some rhetorical questions that I'll probably never know the answers to. I wonder if Stephen would even remember the circumstances of this picture being taken. Maybe it was a special occasion? Perhaps the day he became executive editor? Just speculating here. I guess if you ask me in 20 years or so, I can see if I remember any pictures I was in at this current time in my life.. In looking up this picture, I also came across a Spanish poster (as well as an interesting review/analysis, although naturally in Spanish) for the movie Shattered Glass, but in Spanish it was retitled as "El Precio de la Verdad," or "The Price of the Truth" which isn't such a bad title, especially since the wordplay on Steven Glass' last name in the original title wouldn't have really worked out in Spanish.     

Also, this. "Steve Glass Not An Attorney" (this is from the website of the law firm in California that he works for now, albeit not as a lawyer) ... I'll add that to my repertoire. Steven "Shattered" Glass, Mr. Fabricator (that one I came up with myself) and Steve "Not An Attorney" Glass... That page also shows a more or less recent picture of him. Nice glasses. He seems to like that style. I wonder how he would look if he decided to wear the frameless kind of glasses. There's also actually a contact form for him at the bottom, which is... a slightly tantalizing possibility. But honestly, I don't really want to bother him, so I'll abstain. Plus, perhaps him or a secretary or something filters out the messages that theoretically involve questions about his journalistic sins. If I were him I could understand not wanting to dwell on that, nearly 20 years later. Interestingly enough, it was only tonight that I really realized how his parents had initially wanted him to become a lawyer, yet he went and became a journalist, but now he's actually working at a law firm and is as close to being a lawyer as he can get, at this time. I wonder if his parents are proud of him now?? Maybe he could apply to become a lawyer in all 50 states and see if any of them would accept him. As something I read in the past stated, surely there are worse people than Steven Glass practicing law. 

Liberal media

A little more gloating and some other stuff as well..

I feel like it's been awhile since I wrote a political-related post. And not that I'm particularly intent on making sure my blog has a sufficient amount of political content, but I read something something sort of relevant and wanted to comment on it. 

Firstly, I have been pondering what sorts of topics I should cover as editor in chief (isn't it nice to have a title like that?!) in my (can I call it mine??) newspaper. Some of the things that don't really interest me as much would be sports, so even though the college does have some sports going on, I'm not really aware of them and I don't have a huge desire to do coverage of that. But for the sake of variety and balance, I feel like I should maybe at least try to include some sports coverage here and there, although maybe I'll just assign that out if possible.. I'd rather not cover that myself. Secondly, I was thinking, should I cover politics as it relates to the people of the college? As an extension of that thought, I thought, does that mean I should try to find a Trump supporter in the student body and interview them? And if I did that, would they request anonymity/a pseudonym to protect their identity?? A) I think it would be hard to find a Trump supporter in the student body, although not necessarily impossible; I guess there probably are at least a few, if no more than that. B) If I were a Trump supporter in the particular environment of this particular college/area, I might not necessarily want my identity revealed in an article. But who knows. I'm semi-reticent about theoretically interviewing a Trump supporter, but hey, that one lady interviewed the Nazis in Charlottesville, so... 

Then, regarding my reticence about theoretically interviewing a Trump supporter, I thought about the idea of the "liberal media". I would definitely consider myself to be a liberal, and since I'm going to be writing for a (albeit small) news publication, I guess I count as media too. Liberal media. In my fairly brief reading about that, I saw some headlines that claimed the idea of the liberal media is a myth, although I didn't read those articles. I found a Washington Post media analysis blog post that examined the idea of the liberal media. This article actually has a quote from eyelashes guy (a conservative) in it at one point! Me personally, I understand why people might consider it to be a "liberal media", so I'm not quite ready to accept the idea that it's a myth. There are a few potential explanations offered by the Washington Post, one being that the geographical location of large media organizations (NYT, WP, etc) are in places like DC and NYC where lots of liberal people live. I guess that makes sense, and it applies to myself as well. 

It still remains to be seen/decided on whether I particularly want to cover politics/sports as they relate to the college, but it's a possibility. Also, I am never drinking tea again because it wreaked havoc on my digestion yesterday. Back on the subject of politics, here is an amusing snarky satirical piece from The New Republic. The illustrations are pretty neat looking too.

Also, what with North Korea and the nuclear weapons being all in the news, I thought about how the term "weapons of mass destruction" seems to have fallen out of favor. I guess there's not as much of a question of whether or not North Korea is in the process of manufacturing them though. 

Some anecdotes

From yours truly as well as one of this blog's readers.

Mine: "Imagine this!! So, the neighbors on both sides of us are moving/have moved already, and anyways, the ones that were still left are currently in the process of moving this weekend. This is the neighbor who we gossip about and think is having a midlife crisis, by the way. Anyways, he came over just a few minutes ago because he needed to borrow a broom since he didn't have one or it had already been packed up. So he rang the doorbell and asked for a broom and my mother went to the garage to get it, and then I stood around while he and her talked a little bit about selling things you don't need anymore and which moving company to use. But get this! It's something else - he sort of talks like Peter Sarsgaard! I would say they have similar-ish voices, but his is maybe a little more lively than Peter Sarsgaard's. !!!!!! My only regret is that I never really spoke to him in the past that much. He's a very talkative person though. It's really too bad I only found out that he talks sort of like Peter Sarsgaard on the day he's moving! I blame my mother and how she criticized him for the various things he did/bought that she thinks are indicative of him having a midlife crisis and being unethical and impulsive. 

Alas!!" 

Reader submission: "Something interesting happened to me yesterday that I forgot to mention. I was shopping for more CD's at Goodwill and a man who was probably 40 or so was standing next to me looking at the DVDs. He started talking about Stephen King movies and, since there was nobody else nearby, it turns out he was talking to me. I didn't want to be rude, but I haven't really seen too many Stephen King movies so I just talked about Misery a little bit. Anyways, he ends up mentioning that he's homeless, which is fine, but I honestly have no idea how to respond to that. Saying something like sorry would be kind of patronizing, but just not saying anything about it is a little bit rude as well, right? Anyways... at this point I'm not really sure what to say. Then, all of a sudden, he starts talking about how he's been saved and said 'there's a heaven and there is a hell and you need to get saved so you end up in the right place.' He goes on to talk about how you have to be careful which church you choose because there are 7 bad ones. Now I really didn't know what to say. That's pretty interesting though, right?" 

If any other readers have interesting anecdotes they'd like to submit, I'm open to that possibility. 

Disgraced journalists, yet again

Back down the rabbit hole! In honor of me (although there's still some paperwork to be done) becoming the editor in chief of my college's newspaper, I a) had a Big Mac meal for lunch and b) got myself some new stationery. Also, I looked up the school newspaper for the University of Maryland, because I wanted to see the kinds of articles they publish. It's a much bigger organization, so naturally, there's a bit more breadth to the things they cover. Someone I know of apparently is assigned to cover local government, which just seems so absolutely boring. I'm glad that I get to be editor in chief, as opposed to merely a writer working beneath other editors, which means I have total control over the things that I want to cover (or not cover) as I'm running the publication. Take that, other people who are stuck covering boring topics because they got assigned to it!! I'm going to be in charge!! (I know I'm already in charge of this blog, but me being editor in chief is something I would actually consider as being a real writer, albeit on a small scale. I'm going to have somewhat of an audience, and since I'm the editor in chief, I'll also get some amount of financial compensation.) It feels quite good to be on the brink of being in charge of something, once things get up and running. 

Then, I remembered that another disgraced journalist aside from Stephen "Shattered" Glass had worked at and was in fact the editor in chief of UMD's newspaper - Jayson Blair. I googled him and revisited his plagiarism and fabrication scandal a little bit. Does me becoming editor in chief mean I'm on the road to plagiarism, fabrication and eventually disgrace and infamy as a journalist??  

There's apparently a documentary about him, but I couldn't find it online to watch. Maybe I just need to look harder. I haven't finished his memoir/book yet since I'm not a huge fan of his writing style. It's not particularly great. I did however finish Stephen Glass' lightly/somewhat fictionalized account of his journalistic fall from grace. I'm telling you, even though he fabricated, I still think he was a pretty decent writer. 

Charles Lane, Stephen ('Shattered') Glass' editor at TNR who discovered the fabrications, gave an interview to NPR's Fresh Air program in 2003 coinciding with the release of the movie Shattered Glass. Later in the same episode of the program, Peter Sarsgaard, who played Lane in the movie, is interviewed as well. I actually hadn't come across that interview in the past, so it was nice to have found and listened to that. You can listen to both interviews at NPR's website. 

Edit: I wanted to add a link to this interesting article, which is about portrayals of journalism in film. It mentions various movies, some entirely fictional and some based on real events. When I think of journalism movies, I mostly think about the ones based on real events first, like Spotlight, All the President's Men, and Shattered Glass. However, this article mentioned some movies that aren't based on true events but also have at least somewhat to do with journalism - Contagion and Nightcrawler, both of which I've also watched. The article also mentions another disgraced journalist, Michael Finkel, that I wasn't aware of before, so I'm going to go read up on him now. Disgraced journalists, the gift/subject matter that keeps on giving! 

Edit 2: I thought of a quote that's sort of relevant, although altered slightly: "I can't be doing so badly, because I'm president editor in chief and you're not"

Edit 3: I thought I'd add these links here since I wasn't quite sure they warranted a whole new post of their own, and they regard Stephen Glass... Firstly, this article about his attempts to become a lawyer yet being denied by the courts. I don't remember if I've linked that in any of my past posts about him or not, so if I haven't, here it is. Secondly, this article about how Stephen, as editor in chief of his college newspaper, caught one of the writers fabricating. "You can’t make this stuff up, but if you can, you might want to send your resume to Rolling Stone." It has a link to an article in that same college newspaper (University of Pennsylvania) reflecting on Glass' fabrications, which I actually had not read before. I wonder if all of their articles are archived and accessible, and if I could possibly read some of Glass' articles from when he wrote there? Wouldn't that be something! I feel like I can safely qualify myself as an expert on Stephen Glass. Kind of an obscure subject matter to be an expert on, but whatever. Additional edit to this edit: Regarding the article in Glass' former college newspaper, I found it to be nice and lengthy, pretty interesting and insightful. It's mentioned that he was "not known as a good writer," which kind of surprised me; the same criticism had been leveled at him in at least one other article I've read written by one of his former coworkers at TNR. However, the finished product/articles from him seem well written, so perhaps that was after extensive editing/rewriting as some claimed. Someone who knew him in college described him in that article as being "charismatic" (which I've pretty much figured in all my reading about him) and a "natural leader." The Forbes journalist who became suspicious about Glass' final story for TNR is quoted, saying that perhaps Glass had wanted to get caught because he wasn't as careful with the last story to make it hard to discredit - mentioning he used last names and more specific locations, instead of only first names/anonymous sources and more vague details. That actually wasn't something I had thought of/considered myself before, but it's an interesting perspective. Obviously the only person who knows the answer to that is Stephen Glass himself. It would be interesting to be able to ask him about it though, as well as if he does/did in the past since 1998 want to return to journalism, and why didn't he just become a fiction writer/novelist in the first place?