Thursday, July 10, 2008

More Little Media Pickiness

Throw these in the hopper:

1) I recently have been annoyed by news reports that say "bucks" instead of "dollars", use the verb ending "-in'" instead of "-ing" and generally use colloquialisms. Is that wrong of me?

2) Brian Williams tonight led off the first report with a comment that air travel "hasn't been fun for a while" and my thought was that: (a) "fun" is subjective--fun for whom?; (b) "a while" is not very precise, but then how can you be very precise about when something ceased to be "fun"? Am I just being way too anal?

3) That same report included a lot of fancy graphics, like showing the numbers of announced layoffs at different airlines on the tails of their planes, showing logos of airlines given as visual examples of a set described but not enumerated in the spoken text, and using an animated flying plane as a wipe between screens of data. Even though this added to the report, my first thought was that this was a waste and showed a misplaced emphasis on flash over substance. Should I focus on the positive?

4) The report was about the airlines political action to support anti-speculation legislation. They went to a senator and a person identified simply as "CNBC" as experts, focusing on what the political fallout might be. But there was only the on-air reporter, standing as always in front of a symbolic backdrop, to tell us (inconclusively) whether such legislation would be good or bad for the country. Is it hypercritical of me to think that when something like this happens, the focus should be on whether the promoted policy is well-advised rather than on what the political reaction is likely to be?

5) The report also briefly mentioned "concerns over Iran's nuclear program." It was pretty elliptical about why that was even mentioned. Whose concerns? What concerns? I feel that lines like this are especially dangerous because they operate at the level of innuendo. People will hear that Iran has a nuclear program and that it is a "concern" for someone, and take from that that they should see it as a concern, be concerned, be negative, be distrustful, be opposed, even if no reason is given why. You can't confront something like this directly, because it is not based on evidence or even directly assertive. It would actually be better to be inaccurate than the be insinuating. Or am I being too conspiratorial here?