Posted on 10/14/2008 3:37:19 PM PDT by SE Mom
Yikes! ping
Your typical news dept. employee fits this profile like you wouldn't believe. Non-news dept. folk are a lot more...well, sane.
A pretty solid blog entry that might be of use. I mixed in a comment of my own in post #3.
I know a reporter at one of the nation’s largest newspapers and the same thing applies there, as well. The few conservatives who enter journalism are working in an atmosphere more hostile than most of us can imagine.
MM
But it's so satisfying to accomplish. :)
Most of us know this- but it’s unusual for us to hear from someone inside who is being HONEST about what they see..
Indeed. Worth repeating.
Most of them aren't even from the communities where they work.
This very true in our rural area. The editors are rotated through the Gannett system, inject whatever spin they can (or are instructed on), and move on.
For many years the warnings have been around about centralized media control.
From this rural perspective it is ugly.
i worked in tv for 15 years and this is the same advice i have been giving
to people and tried to give to republicans via newt gingrich. i could
not get him to believe me. that’s what is so depressing about someone like katie couric. she got her start through adultery with newsroom boss.
she knows nothing. far less than sarah palin. they must publicly be confronted with the truth and embarrassed by name. bush sr. stumbled into that
with dan rather and scored many points.
Anchors were openly cheering when the news came out that Sarah Palin's daughter was pregnant. Some of the comments were so over-the-top childish and nasty that I couldn't believe what I was hearing. They're obsessed with her. They hate her even more than they hated Bush. And they all talk openly about how "stupid" and "unqualified" she is. It's pretty much a hostile work environment for the few conservatives who work here.
It isn't "pretty much a hostile work environment", it IS.
File charges on them with the Human Resources department and possibly seek a legal charge.
When they call Gov. Palin "Big Oil With T!ts", a "crazy b!tch" (as Betty White did on air), report how Sandra Bernhard said she'd be gang raped by black men in New York, call her a c##t, etc. and LAUGH at the reports of such activity off camera it IS a hostile environment. When they call her a hypochristian for having a pregnant teenaged daughter, that is religious discrimination.
Go after them. Turn the tables.
It's not shocking to me as well--I work in the same industry that he does. Ordinarily I tend to bite my tongue on FR, because I never know when a coworker might get a wild hair and find out what I might say.
Quick story: one night we were in the middle of an afternoon newscast when our producer wrote a story that read "an SUV slammed into a telephone pole..." and then went on to the remainder of the story. At this point I'd had enough. Speaking while thinking, I said "could we quit saying that SUV's drive themselves into objects for once?" Our producer (who I know well enough to give him grief for his mistakes) was annoyed enough to say "yeah, and I'm going to take writing advice from an engineer."
Without missing a beat, I said "personification is for children's books, not newscasts."
Who is Bush Sr.?
Think globally, act locally. Cut the guy wires on their transmitter towers!
Now, I'm thinking the priorities of that adage are wrong.
Agitprop. Pure and simple. I can’t recall the last time I ever heard a newscast about a sedan hitting something or a Cooper mini. The make of the vehicle isn’t so important in those reports.
I saw this attitude during base closure hearings several years ago. Anchors from two local stations sat in the press box and were constantly preening. The female anchor for the other station, she was locale and had friends at the base, sat among the observers and was taking notes.
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