Mall Shooting

[PeppyGPhiB]

I was surprised that Mormonism has not been mentioned more as part of this story. Honestly the first thing I thought when I heard this happened in Salt Lake was, "I wonder if he was pissed off at the Mormon church?" Really I should not think that, since the last I heard only about 50% of the CITY of Salt Lake is Mormon, but that's certainly the biggest thing people associate with Utah.

[UGAalum94]

Right, that's part of what I wondered. 50% of a city being any one denomination is actually giganitic, but I think most of us assume it's even more than that.

To not report about religion when there's likely to be an assumption about religion made seems like a significant omission.

If you had a Southern Baptist shoot up the Vatican, I think we'd all expect coverage of religion.

On a different note, I rarely tell people "to give it a rest," the first time I talk to them about an issue. Deltalum, are you hearing from a lot of people about the blogs and the mainstream media? I wonder why that is.

ETA: Since the guy wasn't at the Temple, maybe rather than Vatican, I just should have said a shopping center in Rome.

[DeltAlum]

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

On a different note, I rarely tell people "to give it a rest," the first time I talk to them about an issue. Deltalum, are you hearing from a lot of people about the blogs and the mainstream media?

Actually, no. I seldom hear anything about blogs.

I can think of only one real success, and that was Drudge during the Monica Lewinsky thing, I think. Otherwise, I don't think even his track record is so good.

I want to be absolutely sure that it is understood that I am not a journalist, but worked in TV newsrooms (and during that time was around print journalists) for many years and stand by my comments that most journalists are honest, hard working, ethical people. Intimating that all journalists are bad is like saying that all doctors are quacks or all lawyers are dishonest.

A lot of people complain about TV news in particular, but it is by far the most used source for news. I think that's too bad, because print really can cover a story in greater depth and detail.

And I still don't think religion is a newsworthy piece of this particular story.

[shinerbock]

I think most people respect journalists. I personally think it is a very intriguing and necessary field. However, I think many people lose their patience because of the attitude possessed by many journalists. The news media often comes across as having an attitude of superiority and entitlement. I think it is probably based in the idea that journalists have a responsibility to the public. However, I think that notion is similar to hollywood types who advocate for causes...once good intention is now mixed with selfish motivations. I often get the impression that some journalists feel they have an obligation to the public and a right to information, but that obligation only extends to information which advances their own opinions. It just annoys me personally when I see "unbiased" reporters demanding information from the administration (or whoever) about some almost-scandal, and acting as though they're representing the public. They may very well be pursuing something of public interest, but when I see them refuse to pursue another story of equal significance but impacting a different party or demographic, I begin to question just who they're working to serve.

[UGAalum94]

I'm with you on this one Shinerbock.

It's not that I think individual journalists are particularly corrupt or self serving, but I think we've had too many cases in which journalists went with a story that they wanted or expected to play a certain way because of their general world-view, even though that the actual facts might not have supported the conclusion that the journalist reached. And the rest of the mainstream media didn't seem to want to call them on it as much as maybe the general public and the blogs did. (Dan Rather and the forged Bush service documents is the most obvious case, but the huge discrepancies in Iraq coverage depending on who is reporting are also an issue; as well as the Plame story too.)

I think journalists may be very well intentioned, but that ultimately we can't depend on the press to be anymore unbiased than anybody else, despite what journalism ethics professors teach.

And when people defend the idea that we should trust the press to know should is part of the story or not, it's insulting. Those days are over. If they weren't over before Rathergate, they are over now.

[shinerbock]

To be honest, I don't even care that the media is biased. I mean sure, I'd love an unbiased news org, but I don't see that happening soon. However, I do wish we'd be more open about who is biased and which way they're biased towards. I think its fairly common knowledge that Fox News is conservative slanted. I've even heard media refer to them as "right-leaning Fox News" or something of the sort. Thats fine, they are biased. It does annoy me, however, that nobody applies a label to other organizations like CNN or MSNBC. You never hear anyone but conservative blogs say "liberal leaning CNN." I hate it when people act like Fox News is some unreliable brand of news media, yet CNN and MSNBC are legitimate. Its always going to be something towards the middle.

Also, for anyone who is about to say something ridiculous like "MSNBC isn't biased" I need only remind you that their "top political team" consists of Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann.

[UGAalum94]

Yep. It is kind of why I like internet sources; very few make claims of objectivity. By reading source A and knowing how they lean and reading source B to kind of counteract A, I can usually get some good information. You have be be careful though, because if you go too far from center, it makes you wondering if the extremist are even aware of any objective reality.

(Why did anyone at Fox think "fair and balanced" was a good slogan for a source which comes so close to owning up to the fact that they aren't? Fox tends to drive me really crazy because they as much as anybody can make conservatives look stupid. The same with right wing talk radio. Damn, some of those people are very impassioned without actually really knowing anything. At least NPR seems smart and reasonable, however left leaning, IMO.)

More than anything, I'm just not interested in any self-righteousness about how the media is best qualified to determine what should be reported when they blow it so frequently.