Nice job.....except I'm pissed!
 

So I open the daily rag this morning, and front and center on the local page, is a pic of a big canvas that I framed. Now while this isn't about my frame job (as beautiful as it may be.. :D ), I'm enthralled at the owner claiming he 'commissioned' a portrait of Rosa Parks for his office exhibit space. Funny thing is, a week earlier he stood in my shop and giggled when he told me bought it on ebay!

Now, I'm not gonna blow the guy in or anything because #1, what he's doing is very enlightening to many people (especially kids) around town, and #2, he is normally a pretty good joe, as I've met him on a few other occasions.

But damn, the power of the press is scary. Remember me telling you about the mouse that burned down the house :lol:.

So, though I always knew it, don't believe everything you read. (except for the preceeding) Maybe.....



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/08...yjoe/bilde.jpg


link: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/...?Category=NEWS


Exhibit hails equality

Civil rights lawyer honors work of King, Parks

Jeffrey Blackwell
Staff writer


(January 24, 2006) — A local lawyer dedicating a portion of his office to the study of civil rights opened an exhibit Monday in honor of two people who led the march for equality.

Rochester civil rights lawyer Van White opened The Center for the Study of Civil and Human Rights Law in June.

"King: Cover to Cover" is the third exhibit at the center near the Eastman School of Music.

The exhibit includes a collection of magazine covers featuring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and copies of the civil rights leader's five books, including a signed copy of his 1967 work, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community.

A portrait of Rosa Parks, commissioned by White, was unveiled Monday as part of the exhibit. The center is on the second floor of White's downtown office at 18 Grove Place.

The exhibit features items White has collected for more than 25 years, including a voting machine from the 1920s and an original copy of the Alabama municipal code detailing the Jim Crow laws that prompted the 1955 Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott.

"If you are going to be properly motivated to bring change and represent clients, I think it is necessary to have an understanding of history," White said. "Knowing what Rosa Parks went through motivates me to represent people in civil rights cases."

The Rev. Ronald L. House of Bibleway Healing Assembly in Henrietta attended the opening with Rochester City Council President Lois Giess and Monroe County District Attorney Michael Green.

"It gives us a lot of history that we all should know, irrespective of our race, creed or color," House said.

That's actually pretty funny and sad at the same time. Guess the guy felt he had to be special, and he'd be more special if he said it was commissioned.

Very interesting how things can get twisted... but YES - pat on the back to paddy! :D

Well, unveiling a painting with the press there and saying, 'I got it on E-Bay!' surely would not be very prudent, given the solemnity of the moment(but it sure would have been funny). (Nice framing, by the way :thumbsup: )
Years ago, People magazine did a story about my aunt who owns a huge modelling agency in New York and her more unusual models. In the bio, she mentioned that she and my mother were sent to an orphanage because their parents were too poor to feed them(that was for less than a week, but not mentioned) and that my grandfather was a longshoreman. My grandfather, all 5'2" of him, never worked the docks!!! He worked in the boiler room of the projects they lived in. But that doesn't make good copy.

That's one hell of a frame there.

The face in the middle is a little distracting though. They should have chose something more subdued, in my opinion.

One of the reasons I never made a career in journalism is that I got tired of listening to people lie. Interview people on both sides of a story, and they'll disagree on basic facts. Not opinions, simple facts. And if you confirm the facts by other means and call them on it, they'll say, "Oh, well, by _commissioned_ I meant something else.... You misunderstood me." Even when reporters do their jobs competently, much of what you read in the paper is a lie or half-truth, down to the local level.

That's why I ended up in technical writing. Engineers don't lie; well, some do, but they don't tend to last long. You can't make a bad piece of code work by lying about it!

This lawyer was just looking for self-promotion. I guess I'm cynical, but to me it's obvious that the whole "exhibit" was just a way of getting some cheap publicity for his business.

I will never forget the first time I was is-quoted by the media. I thought the interview went really well, and when I read my words in print, they were twisted to look like I was some power-hungry lunatic. (I had no power, nor did I want any in that certain situation). I phoned the reporter, as he had given me his business card, and asked what happened.

He said that it 'popped' that way, and that he had not misquoted me. He had the tapes to prove it, after all. I told him that when he cuts and pastes phrases that I say together, he is certainly misquoting me. He politely disagreed.

Since then, I have given 'bad guys' in the news all sorts of slack. And I have learned two things:

1. "No comment" works wonders, especially when the reporter is on a deadline.
2. "Off-the-record" does not exist. Ever.


Shoddy reporting deserves a fraud sentence, for violating the public trust. Say, about.... 9 years?

I'm good friends with a high level school administrator. She did an interview with a local reporter who asked her very leading questions trying to get her to say the school was mad at the city government. They weren't and she didn't take the bait, he started to get mad at her and twisted the story to make his 'point' anyways. She was basiclly screwed in that he is a well known reporter who has been around for years and pissing him off will only make it worse next time.

She ended up having to tell the city council that the story wasn't true, but a major head ache none the less.

:lol: very funny! :lol:

While I did not intend to attack the press itself, I can unfortunately confirm the experiences related by Ustwo and BigBen.

Because people in public life lie routinely, many reporters and editors don't see stories in terms of truth or falsehood anymore -- they see it in terms of angles: your angle on it, his angle on it, and all are equal... so instead of trying to research the truth -- takes too long -- they simply go with the "angle" that makes the best copy and sells the most papers -- or, in some cases, is least likely to offend the advertisers.

Whether it's actually true or not is irrevelant, as long as the reporter can get a source to utter the words that he needs to make his or her case. Bill O'Reilly, though not really a journalist, is a fine example of manipulative journalistic inquiry -- nearly every question is designed to lead the interviewee to reach the conclusion that O'Reilly wants him to reach.

There are many exceptions. But at the local level, this is what you're very likely to get.

Oh, that happens ALL THE TIME. My dad's a high school principal and I can't tell you the number of times his words have been twisted to suit a reporter's ends. The local paper where my parents live is so bad they call it the "weekly fishwrap" because they write horrible stories so often and only get the truth about 15% of the time. Papers aren't the only ones who do it, either: television news is just as bad. Every time my dad has been interviewed by the news it has never turned out well. People just don't want to hear the truth it seems. :hmm:

Notably, my father has appeared in national media :) in a comic featured in Mother Jones magazine some years ago.

Given that the story was filed by a staff writer, I would bet he likely took the liberty to assume the painting was commissioned. Or didn't even know what commissioned meant.

I decided to get out of the journalism game because of shit like this and the pressure and competition to get stories first which makes truth largely irrelevant.