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Interlude I

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©2014

 

Greil: I'll not sit. I'll not eat. See you the Great Bear. His tail points east. It's the equinox. Have you forgotten? Or rather not think about it?
Valerian: May the gods help whoever's daughter it is tonight.

Dragonslayer (1981)

         When the bombing at the Boston Marathon happened last year, I first learned about it from someone’s Facebook post. I immediately went online to one of the news websites -- and was annoyed to see that most of their story was composed of tweets from bystanders. “Don’t they have any of their own reporters?” I complained. It annoys me that large news organizations spend time reporting tweets, because far too many tweets seem to be impulsive comments. It makes me worry about the future of journalism: will it all turn into just opinion and reports that might or might not be true?
         However, as it was pointed out to me, in the minutes after the bombing happened, the only people who could report anything were the people who were unlucky enough to be close by. And, with the potential lack of fact checking by major news sources, like the 60 Minutes recent Benghazi interview screw-up, maybe a blend of the two types of “reporting” is actually the best thing. I will continue to read Time Magazine and listen to the BBC because they pay professionals to research and report stories. But I admit that having other voices out there to fact check, add eye-witness content or merely disagree with a news report might not be a bad thing – it’s a lot like the old letters to the editor in Time Magazine, after all.

Almighty media - Whose truth d'you sell today?
Watchdog of justice - Who keeps their eye on you?
- Ordinary Man by Triumph