I read the news today
(... oh, fuck)
Back in college, I took communications classes from Carl Jensen,
a professor at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, California.
Jensen created an award-winning graduate seminar called Project
Censored, where censorship is redefined to include not only articles
that never made it into print, but stories buried on page eight
of the Oak Hill Gazette.
You know. Kind of like when Werner Erhard of EST tried to
conquer world hunger by redefining it. I think he called it "alternative
nourishment" or something.
"Now that we're rid of world hunger, it's time we do
something about alternative nourishment."
"Amen, brother."
"Good. Send money."
Jensen also created another media criticism seminar -- this
one a little more digestible -- called "Junk Food News."
For example, the so-called news stories about Robert Downey,
Jr.'s drug busts would qualify as junk food news. Another example
would be the buzz surrounding NBC's new game show, "The
Weakest Link" (although there is some real news to this
story, since the show's host, Anne Robinson, is the only woman
on the planet who's ever made Regis Philbin look good. After
Kathie Lee Gifford).
But getting back to Jensen, one day during one of his communications
classes, he said something that made my head snap back.
"So what's the purpose of the news?" he asked rhetorically.
"It's to give us information so we can act on it, right?"
Really. I had no idea. I thought the news was nothing more
than show biz, something to entertain us after a hard day's work.
I thought all news was junk food news.
Maybe it's the way I was raised. We'd watch the Viet Nam War
on TV, and mom would make us chili dogs. A Kennedy would get
assassinated, and mom would make us root-beer floats and we'd
stay up late. Dad would get arrested on the 6 o'clock news, and
mom would cook us steak (I never understood that one).
You have to understand. I was very young when I was in college,
30 I think. But I can still recall my reaction to the news then.
"A tornado swept across Oklahoma today."
Cool. Glad I wasn't there.
"Four dead in Ohio."
Cool. Glad I wasn't there.
"A gunman shot the entire family at 1579 Shay Avenue."
Cool. Glad I live at 1577 Shay Avenue.
I think the only news that affected me daily was sports (damn
gambling problem) and the weather.
"As you can see from the map, we're going through some
heavy precipitation right now. This rain storm is expected to
continue throughout the night."
Thanks, man. Thanks for saving me the hassle of walking to
the window and looking outside.
Now and then, a news story will affect me. For example, one
time my house in Austin was burglarized, and when the cops arrived,
they were soon followed by the KVUE news crew. My girlfriend
at the time gave KVUE the victim's report they were looking for.
"We're so vulnerable here," she said. "There
doesn't seem to be anything we can do." Or words to that
effect. Now that's news, and no doubt every burglar within a
ten-block area took notice. Wisely, I countered her quote with
one of my own.
"We're going to get a real big dog tomorrow, a pit bull
or a Rotwieler."
The next day, when I saw myself on the TV spewing the quote,
I felt safe and self-satisfied, especially since KVUE immediately
cut to a German shepherd gone berserk.
"GRRRRRRAALPH. GRRRRRAALPH. GRRRRRRRRRRRR." My work
was done.
A few weeks ago, the news affected me again when I got an
e-mail from a Web hosting service called ExpertHosting that warned,
"We are emailing to alert you to an MSNBC article: 'Hacker
claims theft of 46,000 ADDR.com client records'."
Here's a brief overview of the MSNBC article:
A computer criminal in Europe claims to have stolen personal
information on 46,000 customers from Web hosting company ADDR.com.
The data includes account names and passwords that could be used
to alter Web site content, as well as credit card information.
Great. The company hosting my Web site happened to be ADDR.com.
Now I really had some news to act on. First, I wrote ADDR.com
to see whether the story had been confirmed or if I had been
sent to some fake MSNBC site. Sadly, the story was true, so I
had to call up my credit card company and get my number changed
before Horst from the Netherlands started ordering body parts
from eBay with my credit card.
Hackers happen, so I didn't blame ADDR.com. After all, I had
been with the company for three years without major incident.
Just a pile of small, irritating incidents. But a few days later,
I received an urgent e-mail from ADDR.com.
"Due to the unfortunate events that have occurred during
the past week, we are unable to continue operations at Addr.com."
Great. Now I'm screwed, I thought. After e-mailing other Internet
columnists for advice, I scrambled to find a new Web hosting
service and dumped my old ADDR.com site. Unfortunately, I did
this a little earlier than I should have, and my site was offline
for about a day.
Two days later, I got yet another email from ADDR.com.
"Thank you for contacting Addr.com Support. This matter
of us closing is fraudulent. We suspect that this email is tied
to the previous email from ExpertHosting.com."
Great. Now I'm unscrewed.
That's it for me. I say fuck ADDR.com, fuck ExpertHosting,
fuck MSNBC and most of all -- fuck the news. From now on, if
I want to know what's happening in the world, I'll get off my
ass, walk to the window and take a look outside.
That reminds me, did anybody catch the score from last night's
game?
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STANDARD DISCLAIMER:
This column aims to be funny. If you can read anything else into
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