Media's "agenda"

A few things have happened the last few days that got us talking last night that I think should be brought to everyone's attention.

Here's the jist of it, and I'll go into detail later: We the media, or at least our station, do NOT have an agenda against Republicans, Democrats, the University of Wisconsin, or any other specific organization, nor are we a mouthpiece for any political organization.

Here's the detail:
One of our anchors misspoke on air recently when he said a student who was found drowned went to UW-Madison, when actually he went to a different school in downtown Madison.

A viewer responded on our Web site by correcting his mistake, then saying that we "never miss a chance to take a negative shot at the UW!!"
We were a little dumbfounded as to why this would be a negative shot at the UW, and he responded by saying that students at the UW are under the university's care, and that anything bad happening to them that we report would reflect poorly on the UW.

First of all, students at the UW are considered adults and are not under the constant care and supervision of the university. This is the first time we expect them to take care of themselves.

Second, many of the people who work at NBC are UW grads who are proud of their alma mater, myself included. Moreover, we do report a lot of positive stories about the UW -- that same night we reported about a new vaccine being researched at UW that could help people quit smoking.

This really got a few of us in a discussion about the perceived agenda of the media, especially the "liberal media." In actuality, there are quite a few conservatives that work in our newsroom, and we always strive to get both sides of any issue, even if it means putting someone on the air that a lot of us don't agree with. I think that people wrongly isolate a single story or even a single sentence and use that as evidence of bias. It's our job as media to report what happens, and sometimes what happens may not be good for one side of the political spectrum.

Which brings me to another story. Yesterday, I received a call from someone complaining about a story on the national news that supposedly showed the mutilated bodies of two soldiers who had just been found. I wasn't paying attention to the national news show because I was busy doing something else, but I don't know if they even did show any mutilated bodies, or if they just reported that the bodies were mutilated.

Anyways, this person was really angry that we would show something like that on TV. I told her we have no control over what the national network broadcasts on their news show, which is true, but what I really wanted to tell her is that they were just reporting what happened.

Our soldiers in Iraq have to deal with death and destruction on a daily basis. That is fact. Just because something from overseas makes somebody sitting comfortably in their living room uncomfortable doesn't mean we shouldn't show it on TV. War is not a comfortable matter.

I don't think we realize how good we have it over here while our brave men and women are risking their lives in the Middle East. We have not been asked to make any sacrifices whatsoever, but have actually been told to keep living our lives as normal.

The reason that it doesn't look like the war is going so well right now is because the war isn't going so well right now. Any number of figures can show you that incidents of sectarian violence now are much higher than they were at the beginning of the war. The media are reporting all these incidents of violence because they are, well, newsworthy.

A major turning point in public opinion against the Vietnam War, many say, was the Tet Offensive, when lots of images of bloodshed made their way through the media. Even though the U.S. had scored a major victory, it has been argued, the images that the public saw didn't portray it as a major victory, and therefore turned the public's opinion against the war. From then on, the media has been blamed at least in part for losing the Vietnam War because the public was no longer behind it.

There are several reasons why we lost the war that have nothing to do with the media, most of it from the fact that we didn't understand the type of nationalism that the Vietnamese had and that we had less of a military strategy and more of a political strategy for winning the war.

Anyway, I believe in that case and in this case now that the media should report what was happening. Just because it doesn't look good on TV doesn't mean it shouldn't be reported. I would argue that it's a good thing that people get uneasy by these images, because war is not pretty. Maybe if we all knew what war was really like for the average soldier, we wouldn't go rushing into these kinds of conflicts.

That isn't to say we should never go into war. I understand that we have a duty to protect the homeland. But we now know that Saddam didn't pose a serious threat to us, compared to, say, North Korea or Iran, who seem to like to boast about their nuclear programs.

There are many things I could go on about, but I just want to stress the point that we as the media aren't out to "get" anyone. One of our functions is a watchdog of the government, and if we didn't sometimes push the people in power or question them about certain information, we would not be doing our jobs. Then general public would complain that we were the mouthpiece of the government, and the whole argument would start over again.

Weird weekend

I sold my car on Saturday (yay!) and got about what I was expecting out of it, though that money was instantly put into paying off my European debts. I'm just glad to be rid of that car - I think it was cursed. I hope to get a laptop soon, maybe after a couple paychecks. Right now I can manage because I have internet at work, but it'd be nice to have my own computer again.

That night I decided to take the train back home so I could pick up my new car, which used to be owned by my grandma and only has 27000 miles (double yay!).

On the train ride, I was quietly reading and listening to my iPod when a drunk guy gets on at La Crosse and decides to sit next to me. Not only did he heckle just about everyone in the vicinity, he kept trying to get me to talk to him while just sort of laughing at himself and staring at me really strangely. I really wasn't all about talking to a strange drunk guy who later confessed to me that he was gay, and lucky for me he got off the train for a smoke break at Minneapolis and never got back on (at least to my knowledge). He did leave his laptop on the train, and for a split second I thought about taking it, but then I thought the better of it and told an attendent about it. Besides, I really didn't want someone else's smoky computer that didn't have very many good programs on it. It did have the Sims, but it needed the CD-ROM in order to play.

So I have my new car and we're doing okay, though the engine sounds a little weird when I accelerate sometimes and when it starts up. I'm guessing, from very recent past experience with my previous car, that it's not firing on all cylinders, which could mean one or more of the wires have been chewed by a mouse or some other rodent. I seriously hope this is not the case, because I don't want to spend another $100 or so on my car right now and I don't want to have to deal with a rodent problem again.

I Love Mugshots!

Here are a couple people in the news recently for various things, and their mugshots are HILARIOUS. Or creepy. You decide.

The lady is a person from Mauston who decided to drive off after pumping her car full of gas (petrol to my UK viewers) and not paying. The owner of the gas station got so pissed off that he decided to chase her down. She did end up evading him, but not before he got her license plate number. He called the cops on her and they tracked her down at her home. When the police arrived at her house, she told them "You'll never catch me" and ran out the back door. A policeman caught her and brought her into custody. We all agreed at the station that she looks way too nice in this photo to be someone that crazy.

The man is a former sheriff's deputy that was arrested on a drug bust, and when they raided his home they found 50 pit bulls that were probably used as fighters, as well as a menagerie of chickens, cats and fish. He looks like a winner to me.

Vacation (at least for everyone else)

Weel, it's been a couple weeks and I've gotten my first paycheck (woo hoo!). I've pretty much settled in, and for the most part the job is pretty easy. It gets really quiet at night, and I feel like I should be doing more sometimes, but there really isn't much I can do.

One of the things that kind of bothers me right now is that a whole bunch of people are taking vacations, making us short-staffed for the next few weeks. This arises because no one can take vacations during ratings months, which are May and I think July as well, so everyone takes their vacation during June. That means we have less reporters and less producers, and some reporters have to cover for producers.

Adding to the problem is that one producer is taking another job in Utah, and they don't have a replacement yet for her. It's not really her fault for leaving, because she's getting better pay and will be in a bigger market, but it kind of leaves us in a pickle that no one seems willing to fix, except by taking a reporter and having them fill in as producer. I can already tell that this doesn't sit too well with some of the reporters, because they'd obviously like to get out and report and get their face on TV.

I know they're waiting to make hires for our new newscasts in the fall, but it would behoove them to find someone in the meantime so that we have more people available to do good stories.

I'd be willing to fill in some duties as producer, especially since that's what I want to work towards, but I know they'll be a little dodgy about that because I don't have experience. I think I might approach it slowly and ask the producers to write a few stories if possible and maybe learn from them, because there are some points in my night where I don't have anything to do. We'll see what happens.

Getting busier

Well, it's the middle of my second week and I've been keeping pretty busy for the most part. They've added a few more duties on my list, the biggest one being the guy who puts stories on the Web. I like that part, because I've had experience with the Web and I have the liberty of editing stories so the print version looks better on the Web. I also have to give the stories a catchy headline, but as of yet most stories haven't warranted a catchy headline.

I'm also having to do a lot of video transfer with other stations, answering phone calls and contacting police and other people for stories. I think the most conversation-worthy, and maybe cringe-worthy, bit of my job is answering calls from viewers.

For example, last night was really busy because there were tornados all over and we were sending people out left and right to cover this and also getting a lot of calls from viewers about storm updates. All-in-all, a pretty hectic night, and we interrupted regularly scheduled programming (as did all other stations) to provide continuing coverage of the storms. A few people actually called while we were doing our storm coverage to ask if they would show "Last Comic Standing" any time soon. I think a TV show should be the last thing on someone's mind when a tornado could potentially hit your city. It's airing after SNL on Saturday in case anyone's interested.

Anyhoo, the worst was when a lady called to tell me that someone had trapped a mother skunk and that there were several baby skunks by her house. She asked what to do, expecting us to know, and I told her repeatedly to call the sheriff's or the Humane Society. She said those people didn't know what to do, and I said I couldn't help her because we don't have that kind of capacity here. "I thought you guys were supposed to know everything," she said at point, and later she said, "You guys don't even care, do you?" and demanded to know my producer's name.

I thought it was none of her business, and she got even more sassy with me. I finally put her on with the producer, who, by the way, had stayed about 5 hours late to help out with all the tornado craziness, and he was happy to bitch her out and tell her his name. He told her that there were about 4 tornados touching down around the area and that some skunks were the least of his problems.

Tonight was a little quieter, which is good in some respects because it allows me to get some odd tasks done.

My car's in the shop again, and I've got people asking if my car is still for sale. I obviously can't tell them I've got it in the shop, so I've been telling them that I'm out of town for a few days. I hope nothing tragic is wrong with the car - the shop didn't even call me today to tell me what was wrong with it, and by the time I remembered I still had it there they were closed.