The AP: Focusing on the News That *Matters*
It’s a fill in the blank quiz. Via Roderick comes a recent memo from the AP‘s Los Angeles assistant bureau chief to his troops. I’m leaving one name blank:
From: Baker, Frank S.
Sent: Tue 1/8/2008 11:58 AM
To: News – Southern California Editorial Staff
Subject: ___________All:
Now and for the foreseeable future, virtually everything involving _________ is a big deal. That doesn’t mean every rumor makes it on the wire. But it does mean that we want to pay attention to what others are reporting and seek to confirm those stories that WE feel warrant the wire. And when we determine that we’ll write something, we must expedite it.
Thanks.
Frank
Fill in the blank with one of the following:
a) President Bush
b) Mitt Romney
c) Mayor Villaraigosa
d) Governor Schwarzenegger
Answer below the fold.
If you guessed any of the above, you are wrong. The correct answer is:
e) Britney
Your media. Concentrating on the important things.
After the Paris Hilton circus from last year, you won’t be surprised to learn that the L.A. Times has caught Britney fee-vah.
Ah shucks if they were going to talk about crazy sexcapades, while still talking about national “news” they might have hauled out the John Edwards love child rumors. Can’t count the ways the LAT has found to disappoint its readers over the years.
Mike Myers (31af82) — 1/9/2008 @ 10:36 pmKaus would argue this is a big step in the right direction for the LA Times. It’s the kind of stuff my wife would read in the newspaper, if she read newspapers, which she doesn’t because they usually don’t cover such things.
PrestoPundit (ff5e16) — 1/9/2008 @ 11:00 pmUn-freakin-bleevable. The poor woman isn’t even really that entertainment newsworthy anymore, let alone real news.
Kinda feel sorry for her, seriously. Clearly mentally ill at this point, and am hoping for her sake, and especially her kids’ sake, that she ends up OK, alive and more well than she is now. Chris Crocker notwithstanding, she would be better off left alone.
That doesn’t stop me from demanding that Chris Crocker dance to a techno beat to amuse me. Just for fun (skip if you like him):
no one you know (1ebbb1) — 1/9/2008 @ 11:06 pmhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG0mH4JtY-0
Essentially, then, you want us to fill in a blank with someone who’s vacuous?
DubiousD (903957) — 1/10/2008 @ 12:10 amAnd folks wonder why I hate pretty much everyone…
Scott Jacobs (a1de9d) — 1/10/2008 @ 12:39 amI see Mr. Baker is working hard to reinforce his belief that humanity in general has the wit of an intoxicated cat.
Alan Kellogg (c9562d) — 1/10/2008 @ 12:45 amI’d like to see Spears bring a law suit against the slimebags that have been hounding her on the grounds that their harassment contributed to her breakdown and her smaller breakdowns that led to losing her children.
As little respect as I have for the Hollywood set, they don’t deserve to be hounded constantly by douches with cameras, having said douches camping outside their doors, following them around the city streets and interrupting them while they go about their own business in public places.
It’s a mystery to me why the practice is still legal. In any decent society, the practice of making money from pictures of other people without their consent would have been long ago outlawed when it became clear how the practice was being abused.
Doc Rampage (01f543) — 1/10/2008 @ 1:23 amHey patt, you live there, I fer sure don’t! Oh and LA continues to be on my list of I won’t do an install there as well!
Out here we have but two choices, hang the biotch or , oh yeah I’d do her! Which just as easily become I’d do her then hang the biotch.
Californians have and continue to do nothing but enable the forces that with a single vote could alter. No matter how much you may bitch about anything, when the polls are open you continue to elect prima donnas that continue your plight.
You actually force me to not give a daaum about your challenges, from the Davis crap, Enron, and just playing the victim. All but a few of those form or in CA can claim otherwise.
Patt, file some gawd daaumed charge against a few of you colleges, change will happen. DARE to file a suit against CARB! Let the shit fall where it lies.
Let them convince the voters that MTBE entered the water wells because some asswipe mounted his old two stroke motor to the well head on Malibu.
Or maybe explain why MTBE which the greens DEMANDED as a solution to pollution, in reality has caused many more problems and instances of pollution.
Hey the basics of attorney dome, is go where the dollars are. Go for the 4-6 billion the greens have in the bank. Figure out some way to force them to prepay for the suits they file.
Patt, Fight for Right! You are in a position to do so.
or
At te least, engage those that continue to push for a legal system over a justice system.
TC (1cf350) — 1/10/2008 @ 4:20 amMr. Kellogg, you insult alcoholic cats everywhere. Don’t you know it is a disease brought upon the poor animals by humans who feed them alcohol for the human’s jollies?
/snark off
PCD (5c49b0) — 1/10/2008 @ 5:04 amWow! I actually guessed right. (Scout’s honor!)
aunursa (090908) — 1/10/2008 @ 5:53 amPatterico
pay attention to what others are reporting and seek to confirm those stories
Too bad Frank’s message about “facts” didn’t get read by his editorial page editor, Jim Newton.
Darleen (187edc) — 1/10/2008 @ 6:09 amGlad you caught that, patterico. The mind reels, the stomach heaves.
But it’s to be expected from a press corps focussed on trivia rather than issues and ideas.
David Ehrenstein (da3648) — 1/10/2008 @ 6:10 amwhoops…typo… I’m mixing up the AP staff with the LATimes staff
line should have read:
Too bad Frank’s message about facts didn’t get read by LATimes editorial page editor, Jim Newton.
::::more coffee::::
Darleen (187edc) — 1/10/2008 @ 6:16 amDavid
it’s to be expected that the press corps will focus on trivia when more important facts don’t dovetail into their politics.
Darleen (187edc) — 1/10/2008 @ 6:18 amBut the press corps has no politics, Darleen. All they care about is how someone “looks” and “performs.” Rather than deal with actual issues it only wants todiscuss whetehr said performance is “convincing.”
If they had any sense of actual conviction in this regard they would demand that Meryl Streep run for President.
Actually that’s not a bad idea. Of course if she did she’d raise genuine issues and ideas and be attacked as “cold, calculating” and “inauthentic.”
David Ehrenstein (da3648) — 1/10/2008 @ 7:47 amI just want to know when they are going to start saying: “Now and for the foreseeable future, virtually everything involving The Thunder Run is a big deal.”
Yeah….I know…but a guy can hope can’t he?
David M (447675) — 1/10/2008 @ 8:11 amDavid Ehrenstein wrote:
BUZZ! Wrong.
First of all, Meryl Streep learned her lesson back in 1989 when she was the face of the campaign against the pesticide Alar, appearing on 60 Minutes and inspiring a Congressional hearing trumpeting overblown allegations about its toxicity.
From USA Today, October 18, 2002:
Secondly, Streep wasn’t perceived as cold, calculating, or inauthentic, she was — and is — thought to be simply gullible.
L.N. Smithee (b048eb) — 1/10/2008 @ 1:15 pmDoc Rampage wrote: I’d like to see Spears bring a law suit against the slimebags that have been hounding her on the grounds that their harassment contributed to her breakdown and her smaller breakdowns that led to losing her children.
That would be thrown out posthaste. True, the paparazzi are slimebags, but Spears only runs from them when she feels like it. If she truly wanted to be left alone, she wouldn’t do things like go out to Hollywood hot spots commando. It’s like complaining about your neighbor’s dog chasing you when you are wearing a jogging suit made from Alpo.
L.N. Smithee (b048eb) — 1/10/2008 @ 1:21 pmL.N., I think one could make a reasonable sympathy case that she did things like that due to drugs and alcohol, and that the paparazzi are part of what drove her to drugs and alcohol.
Doc Rampage (01f543) — 1/10/2008 @ 3:51 pm#9 PCD,
Booze? Yeah, I was thinking about that, but I wasn’t thinking only about that. Besides, cats get drunk on hapiness.
Alan Kellogg (876821) — 1/10/2008 @ 6:36 pm