Journal Entries
News
Posted Oct 2, 2003
I have become increasingly aware that news has become more about ratings than about delivering information. Sadly, this week a family of five lost their lies while on holiday, in a light airplane crash. The police had yet to contact family and the media leaked the names of the deceased family. I can only well imagine some hungry journalist out there saying 'Let's run with this so we can be the first to break the story'. Journalistic integrity has been tossed out of the window, only to be replaced by blinding ambition with no morals.
What bugs me the most is news readers. In Australia, on the three commercial channels, all news reader fit into the anglo-australian demographic. They emulate US news readers by making small talk with eachother, this fake facade, superficial at the best of times. The expressions they use when reading the news, they seem to be able to switch from a sad concerned face to a happy interested face depending on what the story requires.
There is however a channel where news readers and journalists have integrity, they exhume intelligence. I wish the commercial channels would look towards SBS (Special Broadcasting Services) and try to return to what journalism's core is all about.
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Latest reply: Oct 2, 2003
Stuck in the slow lane
Posted Sep 1, 2003
Do you ever drive to work at peak hour in the morning, always finding yourself having to leave one hour earlier than you would have to if you left at any other time of the day? Seen as I currently don't work I have not had the unfortunate need to wake up at ungodly hours so that I can make it on time!
Do you find yourself stuck in the one lane that just doesn't move? The lane on your right has moved up several car lengths while you are still stuck behind a car that has an annoying bumper sticker saying 'Shut up, sit down and strap yourself in for the ride of you life' or other such annoyances. You feel like getting out of the car ripping off the bumper sticker and stuffing it in the driver's mouth. But instead you sit there waiting to gain those precious inches towards another day at a dreary office, with a dreary desk and an even drearier boss. Then the lane besides you opens up so you promptly take what little window of opportunity you have been presented with and dice with death while you swerve into the space. Of course it is stated in some law somewhere that which ever lane you choose will be the slowest lane. So once you settle in your new lane and slow down to a halt you notice the lane you were just in moving faster and there goes that car with that annoying bumper sticker. It goes flying down the strip as if it didn't have a care in the world.
You on the other hand are left with a feeling of total failure.
Well since moving cities and leaving my much loved and falling apart car behind, I have found that wherever you are in life being in the midst of a traffic jam, always stuck in the slow lane, is an affliction, a curse.
Here I am 'surfing' the information superhighway and I oddly find myself feeling as if I am sitting in my car listening to the annoying banter of 'morning show' radio and waiting with growing impatience as I stare at the bumper sticker on the car infront of me. I am instead sitting at my computer and staring with growing impatience at the add banners that always seem to load with such promptness. While the page I wait for is still loading.
So there you have it. When comparing a conventional traffic jam with one on the Internet I find I don't miss driving as much as I used to think I did. Now where did I put that Jam sandwich?
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Latest reply: Sep 1, 2003
Zenara
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