Wednesday, January 10, 2007

The MSM Is Really, Really Cool

My intention was to read something grand and wonderful about the new iPhone. Mostly, since I've read many grand and wonderful things already about the iPhone, my quest was to linger over the possibilities this new technology could mean for my life. Would I really use it? Are the innovations life-changing? Would I love the iPhone like I love my iPod and iMac? What do those who experienced Steve Jobs' sell job think? And this is what one thinks:

I thought the Apple TV was really cool, but I wasn't sure that it lived up to keynote expectations.

I started hoping there was something really cool coming, otherwise I and everyone else would be pissed.

On Monday, I met two guys who had started waiting in line the night before at 10:30 p.m., just to be first in line for the keynote. I suddenly realized the type of pressure Jobs was under to deliver something really, really cool.

Her prose side-tracked me from the topic. Suddenly, I'm thinking like a Valley Girl, like totally. This article so reminds me of wicked text messaging between like fifteen year olds trying to sound like twenty or something. And then I was like, this article is not way cool. It totally sucks, because I was expecting something really, really cool.

This reporter, Kristina Wong of ABC news, must have an editor. I note this because I do not. And I need one. I'll go back through posts and find missing words, misspelled words and awkward phrasing. It distracts me from my own topic. And yet, with a two-year-old sitting on my lap, I'm distracted from being my own writer and editor. Such is life.

Ostensibly, the MSM is far superior to the lowly citizen journalists typing away in lounge pants, because there are fact-checkers, spell-checkers, editors and general journalistic excellence. As this passage illustrates, such is not always the case.

Just, like, sayin'.

1 comment:

Mike said...

Unfortunately, it seems to me it's teh bloggarz who've succeeded in lowering the bar enough that the MSM has had to dumb itself down just to keep up with the Web de-generation.

Then again, please keep in mind this was a hastily hacked-out missive from some staffer at ABC News ("it was as much of the alphabet as she knew how to use" -- Elvis Costello), Disney's version of CNN. Not exactly the International Herald Tribune over here.

Good post, howeves.

(Now comes the hardest part of any reporter's job, professional or dilettante: the dreaded Word Verification...)