Day Next

Watched the news tonight, and have a small harvest of observations:

1) Story about a kid beaten bloody from a school "tradition" of everyone lining up to punch the celebrant of a birthday. Report adoped the frame of whether it went "too far." Did not like that frame, because it seemed dubious to me that this was in any way a "fun" "tradition." It left me with questions: if one kid was suspended and no others, because he supposedly beat down the birthday boy as no one else did, then perhaps the injured child had nothing really to do with the tradition. No mention of any girls. Is this a male-only phenomenon? No evidence that it is really a tradition other than it having been repeated among a group of kids -- any official awareness? Where did this come from? How long has it been around? And what evidence is there that it is entitled to any respect even if it is a tradition -- who is willing to stand up and say why the tradition is important? Without such data, the frame of "too far or not" is unjustified -- what evidence is there that any level of violence above zero is the right amount?

2) That story about overpaid bus drivers. Actually a good story. Yes, it's a handful of drivers who, because of massive unscheduled overtime, have very high incomes. They explained a couple of factors: bus drivers cope with violence and policing issues on their buses, bad weather, and miscellaneous problems. The people who schedule the overtime are saving money on benefits by not overstaffing. The search for short term solvency is pushing decisions that are not on track for the long term. It's a private company that gets an exclusive contract with the county. Confronted with the issue, the conservative Republican County Exec is now rumbling threats against the contract, apparently seeking to micromanage the business decisions of a private business -- a transparently craven political response that might be correct, but contradicts the ideological excuses for attacking the bus system. The report considered the value of the bus system, the recent economic pressures to cut routes. Very interesting and informative. Now to the complaints. First the fancy graphics: not sure if that is a complaint or not. Someone did a nice job. It's only a possible complaint because one fears that the graphics take attention away from other aspects of the assignment. Those: I never heard a statement how many drivers there are, so that we don;t really understand the scope of the overpayment issue. I also didn't get anything about whether the bus drivers have a union, or whether seniority is a factor in pay. They talked to a guy from the Public Policy Forum but did not really identify the PPF for me in terms of ideology, funding, tenure or credentials. So missing information was a problem, but not a huge one. Actually there was only one big problem, and that was mostly but not entirely in the anchor's intro. Before the report could begin, the salaries in question (not even "salaries" as stated but incomes based on hourly rates) were characterized as "shocking" results of a "broken system" that allows some pampered employees to start "cashing in, big time." I wish the newscast was free of this kind of overt spin, telling me why I should be outraged.

3) There was a crime of some kind on the East Side. We got some anchor spin about how the goods stolen were not the only things the criminals took: they also took away some people's sense of security. They talked to some guy, I don't know if he was the victim or not, whom they gave a platform to opine about what should be done, which apparently he thinks would be "more aggressive" policing or else a blanket of security cameras. I never like when they have this unanalyzed kind of toss-off policy proposal from someone who is driven by emotion. It's like offering a sound bite to the guy in the angry mob who yells "kill 'em!"

4) Another crime story. Introduced by a line something like "you'll never believe who is responsible!" Middle-aged women. You can just imagine them saying "middle-aged white women" but no, they left race out of it. Nevertheless, I'm not comfortable with this framing, which is: you expect people of certain demographic groups to be criminals and others not to be. Why should we have our expectations validated or our generalizations like this reinforced, when the evidence in the story is the exact opposite. As a general rule, I would not underline the race or religion of criminal suspects unless it was for some reason important to consider. I am a little less nervous about age or gender, but I still think there needs to be a point beyond simply pointing to one group as more criminally inclined than another.

5) There was a report that Obama launched a new ad, with a clip and a helpful hint that the ad would be aired during the news broadcast. This is an odd story. There was also an ad for an amusement park during the news but I don't recall there being a news story about it. It seems more like a reminder to patronize the broadcast sponsors than it does real news.

6) Footage from Baltimore. Thankfully no one was hurt. This is one of those, hey -ook-we-have-footage-from-somewhere-let's-show-it-for-no-reason stories.

7) Another brief crime report, with a John Mercure-style lunge at the accused to ask, "How do you respond to the charges" which resulted in he accused's sister interposing herself and yelling, "Go away!" Thanks for that. I really feel like I learned a lot. It makes about as much sense as playing a recording of the reporter calling a source and getting a busy signal.

8) A long report about some victim of something or another. Seemed like endless minutes of hearing about how all of her cats have been found and will be just fine. Maybe it's crass of me, but I have a hard time imagining that somewhere in the world or even in the city, something more important is not happening than this woman's cats being okay.

9) Teaser for yet one more confrontation with deadbeat moms and dads, i.e., people who owe child support. I think newscasts should be used to inform the audience, not shame the subjects. We've seen this a million times. I noticed this time that they referred to one of their subjects as the "worst." What does that mean? Really, it's just somebody's opinion, but I suspect it's intended by the station to be measured by the amount owed. This makes little sense to me. What to me would make it worse is a variety of factors: (a) kids in need; (b) "deadbeat" has a lot; (c) kid gets little; (d) "deadbeat" acts maliciously to reduce or conceal income; (e) "deadbeat's" actions brought on the divorce; (f) "deadbeat" did not seek custody; (g) continuation persisted despite time and remedial orders; (h) ex-spouse is a saint. Probably a bunch of other things. Divorces can be really complicated. Although the law is the law and evading child support obligations harms innocent people, these situations often have two sides that bear consideration and I don't think the kind of simplistic, ham-handed judgments passed out by Channel 4 really lead to any understanding.

10) More speculation about Brett Favre's future. Give it a rest. This is a story they run constantly even when there is literally nothing to report.