debaser

My heart goes out to those who lost loved one in the bridge collapse, it really does.


That being said...

Isn't there anything else going on in the fucking world? I mean really, something like .4 people a year are killed in structral bridge failures in the US, but if you turn on the "news" it's all you hear about. A guy I work with told me he is driving an extra 30 miles to and from work to avoid a span near here. Enough is enough already. Can we move on to something relevant?



























Too soon?

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Willravel

You're getting your news from the networks. If you don't like hearing about sensationalized stories, leave CNN, ABC, NBC, and FOX for something better. I like the Guardian, Democracy Now! and a few others.

Mister Coaster

Perhaps too soon, but point well taken. I already got the call from my mom asking if my daily commute included bridges over running water.

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ngdawg

Considering the second and third things constantly covered are Linseed Lowhand and Bricknee Spears.....
News shows are like Top40 stations-they play it til they kill it.

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Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

debaser

Actually, I'm more of a Jim Leher and NPR sort, not that it makes that much of a difference.

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Willravel

There you go. And if someone brings it up, say "MY MOM DIED ON THAT BRIDGE". They'll never bring it up again.

albania

I'm sorry to be off topic. However, debaser, your avatar is that a still from Dr. Strangelove, because he's using the wrong hand.

Willravel

How about before the bridge, we say enough to less important stories, though. It is a lot more appropriate to hear news about a collapsing bridge than it is to hear about idiot teen stars.

shakran

ya know, I was right there with everyone else when they said we were covering Paris Hilton / Britney Spears / Bennifer / Anna Nicole / etc too much. But this one's actually important. A LOT of bridges (and other pieces of infrastructure) in the country are in very bad shape because the money hasn't been spent to keep them up.

I think it's very important that the public understand this, especially when, as happened in the twin cities, billions of government dollars are going toward building a new stadium instead of repairing the roads.

I think it's very sad that it took a catastrophic bridge failure for this story to be broken. The study that said so many bridges were below minimum standards has been out for a long time - - I can personally tell you that I *know* 3 out of the 4 networks had this information long before the bridge collapse, and I can tell you this because I and a few friends at the other networks pitched this story like crazy when the study came out around 2 years ago, and no one bit. It wasn't sexy enough. It wasn't topical (translation: Once a bridge collapses then we'll finally get off our collective asses and do it).

I think this is one of the more important issue stories out there. It says "Hey, wake the hell up America, your government is not doing it's job, it's not keeping our country's infrastructure maintained. It's not, in short, keeping us safe. THIS is the story that should be trumpeted to all the corners of the country, and frankly I'm relieved to see that, at least for now, that's happening.

zajhein

I don't know if i should be glad i live in oregon where every bridge has/is getting rebuilt, or annoyed that they take forever to do any of it (it's been going on for years). Maybe a little of both.

I also don't watch any news, so it doesn't bother me much. Unless it's on NPR while i'm driving or on wikipedia.

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cyrnel

Shakran, is it really possible for today's MSM to move beyond tabloid mode and cover the important aspects? The vast majority of stories I've seen concentrate on "quotations of horror", another submerged car, and bodycounts. Headline time and reader attention spans are wasted on dress-stain sensationalism.

How much of a battle is it for you guys to sneak real information into otherwise junk stories, or is it a battle against editors doing the reverse?

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There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195

Bill O'Rights

I simply cannot believe that I'm saying this, but...I agree with Will...100% (damn...that actually hurt a little to type)

Because it takes a catastrophic bridge failure before we'll listen to reports of how bad our infrastructure is. "Awwww...I take that bridge every day. It's fiiiine."

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TotalMILF

It's nice to know that I'm not the only one that feels this way. I mean, it's completely tragic what happened, mostly because there was no warning whatsoever, and I'm not trying to downplay the gravity of the situation, but there are definitely more important things going on in the world for this one incident to keep dominating the media. For goodness sake, more people just died of car accidents, heart disease and cancer in the time it's taken you to read this thread! What about what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan right now? The official death toll for US troops is 3664 as of today. I can almost guarantee you that there have been more soldiers killed in action since the bridge collapsed than there are official casualties of the bridge collapse. Yet I haven't heard a word about that in the past few days.

*shrug* I guess I'd just rather see news on the news, not the same story recycled a million different ways over and over again.

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sadistikdreams

What bridge?

Terrell

I agree with the OP. The coverage of these types of things on the television news, is overdone. It's not the only thing in the world that is happening, and the news channels should take that into consideration in their coverage.

shakran

Well, you have to admit, something like this doesn't require much effort to make it sensational. It already is sensational. We can't help that. It's not our fault. And actually from what I've seen there've been updates on the happenings at the bridge (divers looked for more wreckage, more cars found, etc etc etc) but I've also seen a lot of reports about bridges in the area of the station, bridges in the state of the station, etc. And it's not just my shop that's doing it, a lot of 'em are.

Look the people in the newsroom, the reporters and photogs, by and large want to practice real journalism. Unfortunately the corporate owners listen to consultants instead of us, and the consultants tell them that what you viewers want is sensationalism, sex, and crime, preferably all in the same story. They tell us you want lots of fast stories with little detail, and that we need to do lots of flashy graphics and handheld shaky camerawork in order to convince you that it's "real" and "current." It's all bullshit of course, but the guys signing our paychecks do unfortunately get to call the shots.

But yes, we do slip a little real journalism in now and then. It's not nearly enough, and more than a few excellent journalists have left the profession in disgust. I'll admit I've many times seriously considered that myself, and I'll probably consider it again many times in the future. Journalists get paid crap - - many of us make less than your average manager at McDonalds for the first MANY years of our career, and we do it because we want to provide the public service of telling you guys what's going on. If people wont' let us do that. . .we often wonder why the hell we stay when we could hop to another job, make 4+ times as much, have weekends and holidays off, always, and never have to work all day in the sweltering heat or the bitter cold again.

So basically, we're fucking stuck. It sucks, but them's the breaks. We can only squeeze in real journalism when something like this happens, and you'd better damn well believe we're gonna do it when we can. We'd like to do it all the time - most of us feel that you the viewer deserves it, and we believe you want it as well.

It's very frustrating - they tell us to be sensationalist jackasses to get ratings, and then the ratings go down, so they tell us to be MORE sensationalist, and then the ratings go down, so they tell us to be EVEN MORE sensationalist, and here we are stuck under the thumb of clueless idiot managers. All the while we're fully aware that the real way to get ratings is to give you guys good, intelligent stories about issues that impact you. . But of course that costs money, and requires hiring good (and therefore not as cheap) people, and ignoring the idiot consultants, so it's the rare station that gets to do that.

And it's even more frustrating that, when we finally do get the go ahead to tell you guys about a SERIOUS problem (and guys, the infrastructure problem in this country is serious as a heart attack), people start yelling at us to shut up because they assume we're just sensationalizing again.

Well, we do sensationalize quite a bit (and we hate every bit of it), but in this instance, for the most part, we're not.

Menoman

isn't there a thread like this for basically everything that happens in the news?

nothing you can do about it until you start your own news org.

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highthief

Things going on in the world - massive floods in Asia, millions now homeless; a major disease outbreak on farms in the UK; Afghanistan and Iraq still going on; NASA just fired off a Mars probe.

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warrrreagl

I have nothing to add to this discussion. The only reason I clicked on it was because in my default view of the TFP mainpage, this was the most recent thread for General Discussion and my screen size cut off the thread title so it only said "Enough with the fucking."

And THAT was what I was going to comment about. What do you mean, "Enough with the fucking?" Are you totally nuts? But now I see the full title, and well, that's very different, isn't it?

/me walks away whistling and mumbling

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Living is easy with eyes closed.

abaya

Why do you even watch TV news? It's clearly a crock of shit most of the time (sorry, shakran... but it seems you would agree with me, in a sense). No one is forcing you to turn on your TV, or to even own an TV. Stop watching it if you don't like it. Believe me, life without a TV is a hell of a lot less annoying.

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for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
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Cynthetiq

I don't really watch the TV news any longer. I used to watch it daily several times a day, keep on the radio news, and check websites. Now, I don't. My life is a lot better for it.

I still keep up with what is going on in the world. I just don't need to look at it over and over and over and over.

As far as bridges are concerned, I live right next to the Williamsburg Bridge, they just completed major renovations where they removed the entire road structure and put it back together, took over 10 years to do it and I'm sure many years of arguing over it in the political arenas.

Infrastructure takes maintenance. The Manhattan Bridge is currently being repaired and the Brooklyn Bridge will follow soon after.

It is important to keep up with the repair and maintenance of the bridges and tunnels so that you BnTers (what we Manhattanites call everyone else who don't live in Manhattan) can have access.

Let me say this again, we need to keep maintaining and repairing our infrastructure. It also means we have to invest in increasing it as well.

The bridge collapse, the electrical brownouts and blackouts, cellphone dropped calls, these are all unacceptable infrastructure problems to me. It is like we are slowly converting to a third world country.

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Charlatan

It's barely a blip on the local news here. So long as I continue to not watch CNN, I get just enough coverage.

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cyrnel

Aye. Websites are about it for me, other than the occasional coffee shop newspaper scan. News addiction is evil.

We're in the middle of yet another blackout. Currently 3hrs and counting, and it covers several square miles. We usually have 1 or 2 shorter versions each week but early July we had 5 in a week from transformers going *bang*. The same ones. Our grid just can't take the load. The instability reminds me of our silicon valley enron rolling brownouts late 1990s.

Time to alert FEMA? /sarcasm

__________________
There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195

World's King

It's only too much if you actually pay attention to it.


See, I find better things to occupy my time. Don't get me wrong. I read the paper every day. But I don't also watch the news on TV, read blogs, read more then one paper, actually remember and give a fuck about half of what I read...

Most people in this world have no creative drive and need to be spoon fed life. That's where 24 hour news channels and MTV come in. Instead of actually going out and seeing what it's like to get more drunk then Ernest Hemingway on St Patrick's Day, they sit at home and live through the TV... Instead of going to places of interest around the world they sit at home and live through the TV... Instead of learning how to cook and making a meal for their family they sit at home and live through their TV...

You get the point.

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heavy is the head that wears the crown

Lady Sage

Love your take on it!

Thing is they havent stopped at killing it. Now they are not only beating the dead horse- they are sodomizing it too!

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shakran

I do agree with you, in more than a sense. But I'd rather prefer that instead of not watching the news, people call/email/write in and tell your local stations why they don't like what they're seeing on the news. Someone's gotta convince the news managers that you guys want real news and not a half hour of bullshit, and that someone is you.

Bill O'Rights

You just described KMTV 3 News, in Omaha. Nothing but glitz. I might as well be watching Entertainment Tonight, or Extra.

Good point. You have motivated me to the point of drafting a letter to KMTV, and letting them know why I watch the competing channels.

__________________
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

filtherton

I think the coverage, albeit from mpr, is fascinating. I like that the policies of my local government are finally getting some much deserved scrutiny. I like that suddenly the media in my neck of the woods seem to be concerned about infrastructure, rather than the perpetually disappointing twins. I like that the media, just by talking about the collapse, provide a near constant reminder of the shortsightedness of the whole"starve the beast" fiscal policy as it has been practiced in minnesota since pawlenty has been in office. I especially like the NTSB guy- finite element analysis is a phrase you don't often hear anywhere ever. I'm really curious as to how they're going to clean that shit up, and what's going to happen in terms of a replacement bridge. But that's mostly because i live in minneapolis. Also, the whole thing represents a possible sea change in terms of the policies and priorities of my local governments.

All that being said, the stuff i see about it on cnn, which really so far has amounted to lou dobbs saying some predictably lou dobbs-ish nonsense, is nothing that amazing. The local tv news is just as shakran described it. I could see how it could be annoying if you didn't have any real vested interest in the story. I imagine you feel annoyed, debaser, the same way i feel annoyed about the wall to wall coverage that inevitably follows a school shooting.

MSD

Thanks to panic following the bridge collapse, everyone is terrified of bridges and not taking I-95 over the Saugatuck River Bridge.

It cuts my commute in half to not have these idiots on the road, but there's still heavy traffic in the morning, so as far as I'm concerned the media aren't doing enough to make people afraid of bridges.

lurkette

Is the problem the amount of coverage or the tone of it? I don't watch TV news - I get my news from NPR and a variety of mainstream sources online (coverage isn't much better, but there are fewer commercials!) - so I haven't been paying attention to how they've been covering this. I'm not as interested in the stuff that sells ads - the heartbreaking tragedy stuff - as in what went wrong and how to keep it from happening again. At the very least, our crumbling and underfunded infrastructure is finally getting some attention. Who knows if that will result in action, but if it does the coverage will have been worth it.

You have to know when to turn it off and go for a walk.

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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

roachboy

this sort of saturation coverage has all kinds of unintended consequences.
first, it is always curious to feel as though the entire world has imploded into a single event. a good school shooting or high-speed chase--not to mention the motherload of information implosion, a presidential assisination or assassination attempt--erases all sense that anything else is happening on earth. obviously, this is not the idea.

second: saturation coverage really does cheapen your ability to feel sympathy i think. it's like the emotion is built into the footage by way of the voiceover in a way that does not leave you room to react for yourself. it often feels to me like you are not only being told infotainment, but also how you should think and feel about the infotainment all at once. again, i dont think this is intentional--it seems to follow from the saturation coverage itself.

then there is my friend repetition, which is another matter, more complicated and disturbing than either of the above. i'll just mention that an image experienced once or twice and an image experienced several hundred times are not the same.

i used to watch alot of tv but i stopped on 12 or 13 september 2001, once the black hat white hat interpretation of the trade center footage (not the attack--the footage) was in place. this seemed to me then (and still does) a defining moment for everything that is being complained about in this thread--its furthest extension, its most problematic instanciation. i didnt stop watching because i suddenly came to my senses about tv as a medium--i stopped watching because i was absolutely disgusted by what i was seeing and i remain so.

you can read stuff from newspapers. it doesnt actually take more time or energy than watching the tv-snooze and you have a much higher density of information in print than you get via commercial television. i think everyone knows this. but somehow getting information seems not to be a real priority for alot of folk. but that could be just a snarky judgment on my part, a projection--but on the other hand, there really is a hard distinction to be made between television infotainment and information, even in those situations where tv coverage is symmterical with what is being covered and when it does what it can do well.

it is so strange to me that so many of us interact with this medium as if it were not a really problematic form of information packaging and relay. it is really problematic--in ways that go well beyond the personal or personality shortcomings of any number of individual talking heads.

watch critically and turn it off often.

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

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abaya

Well, thing is, I don't watch TV at all. So even if I did call in, and they changed the program... I wouldn't notice, because I gave up on TV a long time ago. I converted to radio (NPR/BBC only) and the occasional online-newspaper read (from my hometown), and haven't missed a thing since.

I've got to agree with the following: I see absolutely no need for TV whatsoever, in this life. There is nothing to be lost from banishing it from your life forever. If you like some shows, okay, download them and watch... there's only a few new ones per season anyway. The only channel I can bear to watch is the Comedy Channel, but even that gets old sometimes. Kind of nice to be here in Iceland, downloading any shows (sans commercials) that we want to watch, without the temptation of cable. TV is a lot less tempting when you only have one publicly-available channel!

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for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
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QuasiMondo

I wonder if anybody else's seen this picture in their local newspaper. A homemade sign posted on an overpass above the collapsed bridge reads, "PLEASE STOP GAWKING. GO HOME. WATCH IT ON TV"

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-From the Collector's Edition DVD of The Terminator

highthief

A bridge just collapsed in China killing more people than in Minnesota - I haven't seen the news as yet on TV. Is there non-stop coverage?

I get the feeling no, although in the big scheme of things, collapse of the rapidly expanding Chinese infrastructure probably is more newsworthy than a bridge in the west falling.

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seretogis

I like how suddenly the bridge collapse is Bush's fault, and we need to raise taxes to fix all bridges immediately.

Politicians reactions to disasters are so disgustingly predictable.

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filtherton

Well, to be fair, we don't hear about most of the people who die in china. I imagine it doesn't really top the list of things that the western world cares about. I know that i'm personally more concerned with problems with america's infrastructure than i am problems with china's infrastructure.

As long as we're lamenting the perspective of people who haven't said anything in the present discussion, I like how suddenly the bridge collapse is the fault of the zionist occupational government.

As far as minnesota goes, the idea that we need to raise taxes and dedicate said taxes to infrastructure didn't come from a politician, it seems to be a pretty common perspective amongst most of the people here who don't, 1)draw a paycheck from actively opposing any and all forms of taxation, or 2)spend large amounts of time listening to people who draw a paycheck from actively opposing any and all forms of taxation.

Sometimes, people are willing to pay an extra $.05 a gallon if they think it will help keep their transportation systems from crumbling beneath their feet. It is disgustingly predictable that it takes something like this for people to start paying attention to issues like infrastructure.