Resurrection

I'm days away from quitting my job and starting out on my own as a freelance reporter. As I look forward to unemployment, I'm thinking this abandoned shed of a blog might have been worth more than I gave it credit for.

The problems I had with it were obvious to me after the second post. The first and most glaring problem with a blog like this: redundancy. TV news programs (especially the local ones) break ethical guidelines often because its policy to do so. Of course Fox 9 has an American Idol beat reporter. How could they avoid it? They're just part of a grand-scale umbrella extension of Fox Inc., ran by Rupert Murdoch, the very man most responsible for destroying broadcast news industry.

If there could be a single enemy of public knowledge, it would be Murdoch. If the current news-media v. ownership struggle were compared to a Marvel comic-book, he and his junta (made up of other industry men, various conservative politicians, etc.) would be The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, with Murdoch as Magneto himself. An even more depressing fact: there is no team of X-Men dedicated to maintaining the quality of the public sphere, countering the malicious acts Murdoch and his Evil Mutants.

Another problem with this blog is my ineptitude, unavoidable because:

1. I'm lazy. Plain and simple. There was a six-month span of time a couple years back, during which I edited a school newspaper and was accordingly beholden to the many responsibilities of an editor. It was a great learning experience. I learned that my human inclination, shaped by eons of evolution, guides me away from taking on too much responsibility. I don't dare ponder the possible consequences of ignoring that inclination.

2. I don't have cable or TiVO. This means I have to pick and choose which broadcasts I watch, and catch the rest on internet postings. The result is an incomplete picture of the daily news-scape, which I feel is important picture to have for these postings. A complainer like myself needs to have a perfect idea of the thing he is upset with.

3. Watching local TV news every day is unbelievably depressing: gas prices going up, blacks killing whites, blacks killing blacks, gas prices going up, whites having to rent because they can't afford housing, squirrels water-skiing, etc. Metro news is limited crime reports, and suburban news is limited to self-absorbed babble. After watching this stuff every day for a couple weeks I start getting nausious at around 4:30, just before the evening broadcast begins.