Did I actually learn something?

I was watching the CBS News with Katie Couric tonight and thought it was interesting that the news tonight juxtaposed something very typical with something rather unusual during the broadcast.

About 1/2-2/3's through the news cast, Couric acknowledges that the steady coverage of Michael Jackson's death has been crowding out a great deal of news that would otherwise be making headlines, and then proceeded to give basic overviews of other things that have happened, such as Obama's Nuclear arms reduction agreement with Russia, the Climate legislation passing the House, and Lance Armstrong's comeback (attempt?) in the Tour de France.

I found this to be both unusual and refreshing. There was an acknowledgment that other things were going on in the world, and that they were important and that the CBS Evening News had a responsibility to share them with us. Of course what they shared was only the crib notes on each event, but never the less I appreciated it.

In contrast, the end of the news was one of those "human dimension"/sob stories. A reporter had a segment about what Kids think should be done about the economy, which ended up being a story about a little boy whose family is struggling in this economy, and so he gave his parents all his birthday money that he had been saving. The mom was on the news and very sad/tears in her eyes and saying how she felt like she had failed as a parent. There was another boy mentioned who had also given some of his money back to his parents to help get by. It then ends with the reporter saying that if you've raised your kids to be selfless like that, then you most definitely haven't failed as a parent.

I was definitely touched by this story, but reflecting on it, I learned nothing from it, because there really was nothing to learn. There was nothing you could take away from this about how to speak to your children about the economy, or the effect it's having on our nation, etc. It was a few cutesy answers from kids, and then they go for the heart wrencher. This is very common. It's also symptomatic of what's wrong with news in the US. They go for the emotion, without much information. It's all about working people up, getting them angry, or scared, or curious etc.

The question the news should be asking is "What is most important for people to understand about their world today?". Rather than "What's really going to grab them?".

What you should be asking yourself is "What did I actually learn from this?" and "How do I know this is true? Who's presenting me this information, do they have a vested interest in a particular outcome?".

Overall, I have to say I didn't learn very much from the news tonight, although I did appreciate Couric letting America know something besides Michael Jackson has happened this week.

Palin's Resignation

Talking Points Memo has a great commentary up about Sarah Palin's resignation and how it's being interpreted by some commentators here. I think Palin's resignation provides an opportunity to evaluate just how dogmatic some "analysts" are. If you refuse to say she resigned, if you're calling her a "fighter" when she quit with 18 months remaining, if you refuse to call her out on how faulty the "lame duck" excuse is, then you're not speaking the truth. This was a bizarre move and doesn't look good for her future political ambitions in elected office. You can still appreciate her, what she did for Alaska (I don't know enough to comment on that one way or another), how she inspires people, but call it what it is.

The Next Right has a pretty intelligent, and certainly kinder, reaction to Palin's resignation (minus the unncessary Obama barb) as well here.

Transformers 2: Revenge of Michael Bay (on the world!)

I saw the new Transformers movie last week, and have to say I found it troubling on a few different levels. During the movie I was often confused (which blurry set of metal is that?! Is that a good guy? When did we get to here? Was the Mom this crazy in the first movie?) and disappointed by the obvious biases I observed. Megan Fox was of course emphasized almost exclusively for her attractiveness, but the extra misogyny/homophobia displayed, usually directed at the college roommate, seemed new to the series. The majority of it coming from the transformer twins, who were also vary obviously "Black" robots and ridiculous caricatures that seem straight out of the 1960's. They spoke poorly, were made to seem illiterate, spent much of the time fighting each other, at least one had a gold tooth, and as I recall both had buck teeth. As another review I read (can't remember which one) pointed out, they did everything but eat watermelon and fried chicken as far as old stereotypes go. Michael Bay has of course denied any wrong doing or offensiveness and claims that they're just robots with a range of personalities and people are reading stuff into them that isn't there.

To give it credit, there were a few moments that I enjoyed, mostly involving Shia playing the anti-hero that he does so well. He's not the Josh Dumel character who's large, in charage, and extremely handsome. He's smaller, still good looking but in a less conventional way, and would often be scared or self-deprecating. That's the kind of stuff I remember making the first movie enjoyable, and should have been kept for this one.

The other trap this movie fell into, that many sequels fall into, was trying to do too much. There were new Transformers, but they were at the expense of the characters we had met and liked in the first movie. There were more robot fights, but it was often too confusing to know who was on what side, who certain characters were, and why they were fighting. The fights came at the expense of the story line, and easily could have been cut in half. The movie also could have been at least 30 mins shorter, if not 45-60 mins shorter for the story line they had. Michael Bay really should take notes from Peter Jackson about how to do a fight scene. Lord of the Rings had some epic fights, but they happened for a reason, were part of the story, and you were emotionally involved in them. This movie felt more like X-Men 3, with more just for the sake of more. Very disappointed.