A Critique of the Boston Bombing News Coverage (Video)

David Coursey has spent a lot of his life as a journalist, specializing in IT coverage for most of it. He's written for ZDNet and eWeek, Forbes, and other well-known publications, and has had his stories linked from Slashdot more than a few times over the years. What he is not as well known for is his expertise as an EMT, a field he has been in as both a volunteer and professional since the rocks in California (where he lives) were still soft enough that the Flintstones used them as pillows. He and I were chatting on Facebook yesterday, and I realized that David's views on media coverage of the recent Boston Marathon bombings might be worth sharing. Do you think what he's saying is valid? Do you agree or disagree with him? Or some of each?

Comments

The big rush

[Rurik]

We need a story now, quick. We need something to put on airtime because our marketing is calling around our advertising clients to see who wants to bid on the next hour of airtime. The big need to get something up quick, even if it's very low quality, such as a poorly recorded video interview without a transcript... oh, wait...

Re:The big rush

[peragrin]

Oh you forgot, we need to be the first so screw fact checking by calling the police dept to see if they actually arrested any one and just run the story that they did arrest someone based on unconfirmed rumor.

Re:The big rush

[AK Marc]

Can we get a story critiquing the critiques of news coverage? Then a round of critiques of those? How do I know which critique to pay attention to when the critique critiques aren't out yet?

Re:The big rush

[ISoldat53]

I saw one story in the newspaper that was just a list of times of who reported what and who was first with what. Read like a re cap of a football game.

Re:The big rush

[ackthpt]

We need a story now, quick. We need something to put on airtime because our marketing is calling around our advertising clients to see who wants to bid on the next hour of airtime. The big need to get something up quick, even if it's very low quality, such as a poorly recorded video interview without a transcript... oh, wait...

Back on Sept 11, 2001, the media were far worse. Network and news outlets on television and the web were trying to outbid each other on the body count. 5,000, 15,000, could be has high as 40,000. Really appalling. They didn't know what else to do in their own confusion, but play the horrifying videos over and over and try to make the whole thing as grim as they could, to keep viewers glued and ultimately numbing them.

I have a book with collections of newspaper front pages from December 7, 8, 9 ... 1941. Back in that day the news focused on what was known, body counts were off the pages for the first few days and then only included known dead. The final tally wasn't truly known in the news for almost one year. News moved slower, people gave themselves more time to think.

The idiocy of the AP running a rumor of an arrest and showing how quick every other outlet is willing to parrot this and seek confirmation later, showed what a swarm of locusts mentality there is in the media these days.

Re:The big rush

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at you, demanding a big rush to critique the critiques.

We should all just put blinders on and completely ignore the events happening around us. Future generations can investigate and critique them.

Re:The big rush

[Delarth799]

I remember a quote from a while back that said "We don't have reporters these days, only stenographers" Which is true more and more each day. Almost nobody fact checks anymore they just spew it out as fast as they can write it down. Sure some of the more local places are better but the bigger news companies its getting rarer and rarer.

Re:The big rush

[SuricouRaven]

We went through similar reporting in the UK on the tube/bus bombings. I watched that reporting as it happened, on two channels at once - not because I care to be that up-to-date, but because the reporting itsself interested me. Sky News and BBC. Both reported a lot of things which were soon after revealed to be false - varying estimates not just for the casualties, but the number of bombs!

This is what the public seems to demand now. News reporting just seconds behind events, from the front line, as it happens. That means there isn't time to check facts. If a station stops to check facts, a competitor will report things first.

If you want to see some really interesting 'reporting' try the biased sites and internet news. Plenty of speculation reporting as fact there, and an effective industry of 'experts' who can be interviewed to say anything on anything. The leading groundless speculation right now is that this must be an Al Quida attack, on the grounds that the bombs were constructed using pressure cookers as components, and some Al Quida bombs in the past have used pressure cookers too. That, and a middle-eastern-looking bearded man was seen in the crowd on some mobile phone footage. The conclusion may be correct, but the reasoning isn't.

Re:The big rush

[Bigby]

That is because there is still an attitude that what you say isn't "etched in stone". When you write it, it is "etched in stone". So with newspapers, they were careful for their own credibility. Someone could always go back and prove you were wrong. Although you can do the same thing with video and even measure context better with video, that attitude doesn't seem to prevail. We as a society seam to expect fallacy in video.

Re:The big rush

[NatasRevol]

This is what the public seems to demand now.

No. Just no.

The public would like the facts, as quickly as possible.

The news media only listened to the second half of that sentence. Much like their reporting.

Re:The big rush

[ackthpt]

That is because there is still an attitude that what you say isn't "etched in stone". When you write it, it is "etched in stone". So with newspapers, they were careful for their own credibility. Someone could always go back and prove you were wrong. Although you can do the same thing with video and even measure context better with video, that attitude doesn't seem to prevail. We as a society seam to expect fallacy in video.

Maybe not etched in stone, but etched in something more permanent - the internet. Somewhere I have a printscreen from November, 2000, proclaiming Al Gore as the next president of the United States. I know it didn't last on ther page for long, but I saved it. I have it somewhere.

Re:The big rush

[Chris Mattern]

The public would like the facts, as quickly as possible.

The news media only listened to the second half of that sentence. Much like their reporting.

That's because the second half of that sentence is effectively the important one. It's difficult to tell if a report is the facts. But it's easy to tell if it's first.

Re:The big rush

[Chris Mattern]

How about the Obamacare decision, where they initially reported it had been struck down?

Re:The big rush

[elashish14]

If you don't like it, use non-profit news outlets. I do not use for-profit news sources anymore (CNN, etc.).

Sites like /. don't count - they're not really news sites per se, they're more aggregators, and focus on specific niche areas - I'm talking more in the scope of general daily news sources.

Re:The big rush

[SplashMyBandit]

I think part of the problem with reporting is the influence of Cultural Marxism, also known as Political Correctness. This means that journalists don't tie together important background information if it doesn't match the narrative of the angle they decided to take *before they started their story "investigation". What remains after the self-censoring does not make much coherent sense.

For example, looking around the World it appears as if much of the violence is random and much of the US response equally random. Hence you get notions that the US is doing drone strikes all over the place because of ridiculous speculations like the military are bored and are looking for sport (or equally, the military industrial complex needs wars for more money; it is quite good at getting money without wars - in fact, wars suck money out of new procurement programmes, so are not so good for most players in the MI complex; but I digress).

If you dig deeper than the mainstream media to join the dots you will see that many of the "random clashes" around the world are part of an organized campaign of Islamic expansion or sectarian conflict funded by Saudi and Iranian petrodollars (eg. the violence in the following countries is not isolated, it is connected by Islamic ideology: Bulgaria, Sweden, Denmark, France, Mali, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Yemen, Iran, Pakistan, India, Thailand, the Philippines, Eastern China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Argentina and most recently, the US). This conflict has been going on for 1400 years, yet the shallow analysis of the press ties it to more recent events (eg. US intervention in Afghanistan). Similarly, the US is waging an equally stealthy global war to oppose this. Because the mainstream media has been self-censoring and reporting euphemism and memes that don't match that facts it is no wonder people cannot connect the dots to see what is really going on in the shadows. As long as things happen over time periods longer than a few months the mainstream media are fairly oblivious to it, and can easily be persuaded to parrot the propaganda of the antagonists rather than conduct a proper analysis.

There is no easy solution to the self-censoring, and eradication of the wider perspective of any story by the press. However, the Internet has made a huge difference and will only grow in importance. Internet news is bad in that bad reporting and fallacies live forever, but it has the huge advantage that anyone with an interest can fact-check and self-publish articles that can reference all sorts of detailed information. For example: sites like Gate of Vienna (http://gatesofvienna.net/) and others show the holistic picture of growing Islamism by tying together all the facts they can get their hands on - meanwhile, the mainstream media were effectively cowed into Sharia-compliant self-censorship by the violence resulting from the 'Danish cartoons' fiasco (and a lack of political leadership, and the political correctness concept of 'causing offense' as a crime, meant there was little support for free press defiance - hence the freedom of the press shrunk a little more).

Mainstream media news is only for those that want sound bites that skew the picture in the way the reporter wanted. Only Internet news sites provide the comprehensive analysis that allows tying together disparate events for a coherent picture of the motivations of those involved. Unfortunately that means that the huge number of people who only get their news through mainstream media have a very narrow and distorted picture of reality (which is why they voted Obama a second term to further fsck up the US economy [through government overspending on *massive* entitlement programmes the US simply cannot afford] and its Constitutional liberties).

Re:The big rush

[BLKMGK]

Yes, it's about money. Then you started with the 9/11 conspiracy shit and I realized that yup you're a conspiracy guy. Guys with radiation detectors onsite? Why in the hell would anyone find that surprising and why in this world would the news report it?

Never mind. I'm not going to feed you, it's just not worth the energy banging my head against the wall with one of you guys.

Re:The big rush

[BLKMGK]

Oh, one other thing. I own 4 backpacks. ALL of them are black and at least two have skulls on them - stop the presses!

http://www.jinx.com/home.aspx

Black is probably THE most common color for a backpack....

Re:The big rush

[s.petry]

As to the article linked: Where do they claim it was a specific backpack? They are saying that Mercenaries at the event wear similar backpacks and are not named as persons of interest. Their questions start with "Why a Mercenary Company is at this event to begin with?" It is very much worth questioning why a Mercenary Company is patrolling Boston's streets instead of, you know.. the Boston Police, Massachusetts State Police, and Sheriff's offices. They are also showing that the bombs could have been placed by Mercenaries as easily as some random person they have not yet found. They are not even claiming that the Merc company was in on it, but rather the guys walking around should be persons of interest and interrogated by the Police.

Do they spend too much time on the radiometer? I think some of their questions on the device are over the top, maybe just to make sure you see them. Maybe they suspect them as detonation devices and just didn't say so? I don't know their thoughts on it, I just read the article. I agree with them that the media has never mentioned hired Mercenaries at this event, and it does seem rather odd. Is it explainable? Maybe, if you don't know to ask why they are there you don't know to ask for an explanation do you? And nobody seems to be volunteering information.

To your first point: People asking questions still regarding 911 are just idiots? You have all the answers to building 7? Maybe ou must have found all of the plane debris from PA right? Or you found the plane debris at the Pentagon, and figured out all of the physics required to explain a hole much smaller than the plane that hit the building, and no wing marks? Over 3,000 Architects, Engineers, and Physicists have stated that the Government answer to how and why T1 and T2 fell is impossible, maybe you have all of the answers they are looking for? You have none of those things, and you won't even acknowledge the questions.

Let me point this out really simply. Claiming you were told a lie is not the same as having the truth. If I claimed I knew the answers to the above, feel free to call me what ever you like. The majority of people asking questions are not asking because they know answers, they are asking because what they were told can not be true. Science has tested the released answers over and over, and the released answers fail.

Maybe you are so afraid of cognitive dissonance that you won't bother to look at the questions people are asking, or why they are asking. It's much easier to believe that Uncle Sam and the Media would never ever lie to you. Even though there is ample proof that both happen commonly, you will still vehemently deny that it happens. The fact that people behave that way goes back at least a couple thousand years, and is written in the Allegory of the Cave.

Please, don't bother feeding me.. I'd starve to death trying to absorb your wealth of knowledge.

Re:The big rush

[s.petry]

There is no easy solution to the self-censoring, and eradication of the wider perspective of any story by the press. However, the Internet has made a huge difference and will only grow in importance. Internet news is bad in that bad reporting and fallacies live forever, but it has the huge advantage that anyone with an interest can fact-check and self-publish articles that can reference all sorts of detailed information.

Agreed, this is why so many other sites are popping up currently. I hope it grows, because what we have in media today called "News" is anything but news.

Unfortunately that means that the huge number of people who only get their news through mainstream media have a very narrow and distorted picture of reality (which is why they voted Obama a second term to further fsck up the US economy [through government overspending on *massive* entitlement programmes the US simply cannot afford] and its Constitutional liberties).

Well stated.

Re:The big rush

[s.petry]

Do you have the Mercenary logo on your shirt, hat, and carry a gun at public events as a Mercenary and not an officer of the law? Would you be a bit bothered if you went to the State Fair with the Kids and Blackwater guards were patrolling fully armed? Personally I'd leave, they are not police and something is wrong with that situation. What is more wrong, is someone thinking it's no big deal or normal. Then again, maybe citizen34057 is fully integrated into the police state and trying to get a better home for his one allowed wife and one child.

Re:The big rush

[tehcyder]

I think part of the problem with reporting is the influence of Cultural Marxism, also known as Political Correctness.

Anyone who thinks that the mainstream media, especially in the US, are Marxist should either seek psychiatric help, or perhaps just knock off the drugs.

And yes, I know he said "Cultural Marxism" so that he can pretend he meant something other than, er, marxism.

Re:The big rush

[tehcyder]

Maybe you are so afraid of cognitive dissonance that you won't bother to look at the questions people are asking, or why they are asking. It's much easier to believe that Uncle Sam and the Media would never ever lie to you. Even though there is ample proof that both happen commonly, you will still vehemently deny that it happens. The fact that people behave that way goes back at least a couple thousand years, and is written in the Allegory of the Cave.

That's not what (Plato's) Allegory of the Cave means at all.

He believed there were eternal truths (e.g. the perfect idea of a circle), which we can only see the distorted reflections of. It's got nothing to do with governments or people lying to each other.

Re:The big rush

[drinkypoo]

which is why they voted Obama a second term to further fsck up the US economy [through government overspending on *massive* entitlement programmes the US simply cannot afford]

You mean fellating the military-industrial complex, right? We can't afford that. But if we stopped blowing so much money on it, we could afford all the entitlement programs meant for citizens, and then some.

Re:The big rush

[zildgulf]

Who is critiquing those that critique?

Re:The big rush

[Anonymous Coward]

While I love your enthusiasm about bad journalism and the capture of media by controlling interests, it doesn't help your point at all to complain about how news is generally unverified propaganda, and then immediately proceed into your own unverified propaganda. If you examine more than the surface and bother to check both sides of every story, your scenario can only be believed by a fool. I'm afraid you have been captured by right wing propaganda (alas, much of the USA has); I recommend you turn off Fox News.

Re:The big rush

[Anonymous Coward]

He pretty much expressed verbatim Rupert Murdoch's propaganda. I think we have ascertained which team he bats for, and successfully proven how little thought goes into that decision.

Re:The big rush

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a photoshop, I can tell by the pixels.

Re:The big rush

[s.petry]

The Allegory of the Cave is a metaphorical masterpiece. Cognitive dissonance and the human responses to fear and comfort versus facts are both covered.

It's got nothing to do with governments or people lying to each other.

What? The sentences are a question asking "What would happen if a Government keeps it's population enslaved within a cave so that they don't know the outside world exists?" (Translations vary greatly, but most should come very close to that. This comes out in a discussion about how to create a "perfect" Government which requires intense study of currently known and more often than not types of Governments, and how a persons reality can be manipulated.

Sorry dude, you obviously know very little about the Allegory of the Cave. I'd recommend that you read a different translation than you read (If you have actually read it), or a different set of cliff notes or something. Cambridge historical texts are very well done, and little is done in the way of interpreting the Philosophy being discussed as you may find in some College books.

Re:The big rush

[s.petry]

Gah.. s/The\ sentences/The\ first\ sentences/

Re:The big rush

[kaatochacha]

The critiquemen!

Re:The big rush

[kaatochacha]

I'd have to agree with this.

Re:The big rush

[kaatochacha]

non profit news sources do have their own bias, though.

Re:The big rush

[SplashMyBandit]

Perhaps you could watch a historical documentary and learn a little bit about the issue. Cultural Marxism is different from economic or political Marxism. Since it appears you don't understand the difference I hope this video may teach you something:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIdBuK7_g3M

Please watch the video and then get back to me to show me where I'm wrong. Your statements so far show you to be well indoctrinated by the precepts of the Frankfurt School. It's ok if you want to stay in the Matrix that is US culture, but at least have a look at the bars that you choose to remain behind. Sound good?

Re:The big rush

[SplashMyBandit]

Ah, the demonization of the Left. So typical. Rather than understand the point I was trying to make, and then debating with whatever facts you knew to counter, you instead resorted immediately to applying labels. It shows how little thought *you* bring to the table - since you never have to use facts in your arguments and you can dismiss competing ideas based on labels you apply to those presenting them. I suggest you watch the following video to understand how the methods you have just used in fact reinforce the case I made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIdBuK7_g3M

Re:The big rush

[SplashMyBandit]

The US economy is being destroyed because the inhabitants are doing several things:

• 1) Citizens are demanding benefits and entitlements from the Government without regard to overall programme cost or the contribution of the individual citizen. These entitlements are causing the overspending (not the defense budget which has been shrinking in relative terms for 60 years, even if it has grown in absolute terms although at a slower rate than the overall economy)
• 2) Politicians must grant the wishes of the citizens or they will not even have a chance to be elected. Therefore, politicians promise lies and bad policies are put in place. Pork programmes are demanded by citizens and granted by politicians from the public purse.
• 3) Politicians are continually growing the size of Government. This is a non-productive sector which consumes resources from the productive sector, and lately has been interferring with the ability of the productive sector of the economy in generating wealth. Of course Government regulation is needed to enure fairness, but outfits like the EPA have gone *insane* with regulation.
• 4) Besides the increased size of Government, individual government worker salaries and entitlements have increased to the point they exceed salaries in the private sector. The benefits of civil servants (eg. pensions) are now the largest source of debt in the US economy. Unfunded liabilities of entitlement programmes (mostly pensions etc) are now around $US 60 TRILLION (or a staggering $238 TRILLION according to Niall Ferguson's estimate) and far far exceed US defence spending at $0.8 TRILLION per annum, and falling (while also providing jobs and high-tech innovative industries with R&D funds).

A couple of citations/references for you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States#Unfunded_obligations_excluded
http://silverdoctors.com/niall-ferguson-us-unfunded-liabilities-top-238-trillion/
The "100k" club, the number civil servants drawing more than $100k per annum is *soaring*
http://newjersey.watchdog.org/2013/04/15/100k-club-3/

So while you may see fiscal conservatives as "meanies who don't care about the poor" this is a mistaken view. It is the liberal spending policies of the Obama Administration (look at how spending has *increased* massively, even after the economic bailout) that are destroying the US economy and will ultimately hurt the poor far far more than fiscal conservatism would (which would reduce entitlements and wasteful programmes in the short term, but grow the economy in the long term which would allow more tax to be generated which would only then get redistributed to the poor; as JFK said about the importance of this, "A rising tide floats all boats").

The reason you repeat the fallacy of US defence spending is the result of several factors:

1) Cultural Marxism is now dominating the discourse. Marxism lost the economic and political battles, but has won the cultural battle. The cultural narrative is now directed by marxists of the Frankfurt School, and they are ensuring that America marches to its destruction while the population is misguided and misdirected by Marxist memes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIdBuK7_g3M

2) the mainstream media are either too incompetent or complicit in this scheme (most journalists and editors now come from schools with programmes that are aligned with Cultural Marxism - which is why many newspapers enforce follow and enforce the Politically Correct narrative).

3) Much of the US population has a woeful knowledge of geopolitics and history. They can easily be swayed by false memes because they don't know much about the history of plac

Re:The big rush

[SplashMyBandit]

I'm not in the US and don't watch Fox News. Sorry, your smear has failed. I suggest you watch the documentary I posted.

Re:The big rush

[Anonymous Coward]

The easy mark to look at is the money involved. Is it really about the money, or is it about propaganda? If you investigate things about 911 and look into building 7, the lack of plane debris in PA and the Pentagon, you really should be questioning whether it's really all about money.

What "lack of plane debris" in PA and the Pentagon? There was plenty found. The only complaint I've ever seen you idiots present is that there were no visible large pieces in the published pictures. Well duh, high speed oblique impacts shred airplanes to tiny bits, and most of the mass went into the ground (in PA) or inside the Pentagon, so of course there wasn't any big airplane-shaped thing left to see.

Component serial numbers were traced. Victim remains were identified. There is no reasonable doubt that the airplanes which disappeared on 9/11 were what crashed into that field in PA, the Pentagon, and the two WTC towers.

And what, specifically, about WTC 7? Did you look into the engineering reports about why it collapsed, and do you have any rational criticisms of same, or are you just going to lie on and on about nonsense like "steel framed buildings can't fall down when on fire", like every other garden-variety 9/11 loon?

Yeah yeah, here come the "you are just a conspiracy theorist" comments. Anyone that asks a question, or suggests that people ask questions, must be crazy because the media told you so.

No, you're crazy because you've decided to swallow conspiracy theory bullshit peddled by idiots and liars. And I don't reach such a harsh conclusion because "the media" told me to, but rather because I've spent a lot of time reading up about the topic. There is a ton of debunking information out there on the net which utterly demolishes all the conspiraloon theories about 9/11, and all you need to evaluate it is a critical mind and a reasonable amount of background in science and engineering. The mainstream media never spent any significant amount of time on this topic, nor would I trust anything it said about it (one of the things it's absolutely terrible at is reporting on anything technical).

Also: you're trying to use a false dichotomy here. It is not an exclusive-OR choice between "s.petry is crazy" and "news media is generally awful". Both are true! And while it's a good principle to ask challenging questions of the powers that be, that doesn't mean all such questions are worthwhile. Virtually everything coming from the conspiraloon crowd is a waste of everyone's time.

Worst. Coverage. Ever.

[fnj]

Coverage has been one completely bogus claim after another, always from unnamed sources.

Blast from second floor inside building. Oh wait, no it wasn't.
Two bombs placed in trash cans. Oh wait, no they weren't.
Authorities have found and "blown up" a number of other bombs. Oh wait, no they haven't.
A dark skinned suspect has been arrested. Oh wait, there is no such suspect.

Re:Worst. Coverage. Ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

A dark skinned suspect has been arrested. Oh wait, there is no such suspect.

You meant Abdulrahman Ali Alharbi doesn't exist? Or that he was never suspected of anything? True he wasn't actually arrested, but his visa was revoked and he's being deported.

The police also water cannoned a number of suspected bombs that turned out to be nothing. When I heard the reports of "other bombs" being water cannoned I knew it was the normal over protection.

Re:Worst. Coverage. Ever.

[AK Marc]

In police speak, everyone's a suspect until cleared. And he's been cleared. He was suspected because he was there and brown. He's connected, so like the Saudi family evacuated during the no-fly period after 9/11, we treat them like royalty. But he's been officially cleared of all suspicion. He was never arrested. For all we know, it was a hit against Saudi royalty with him as the target, and they are "deporting" him because that was the request of the Saudi Royal Family. There are no facts, no public releases, and no arrests. We only know what the conservative media spoon feeds us, or talk-shows tell us are "unconfirmed rumors we'll treat as true until proven otherwise, then go into the conspiracy to cover up the facts if anything we say is wrong."

Re:Worst. Coverage. Ever.

[Bigby]

Many of them can probably be explained by the tried and true game of telephone. While they didn't blow up other bombs, they blew up suspected bombs. That would account for (1) and (3). The bombs had metal fragments, so a 1st responder was probably like "were these in a trash can?". An innocent mistake, as at least one was in a pressure cooker (2).

I don't know about (4), but they did ask a whole lot of people questions...I'm sure one was "dark skinned".

Re:Worst. Coverage. Ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

A person on the just released FBI video on Foxnews wearing a light blue jacket carrying a white box with pink ribbon and three or so balloons attached was blurred in video. Immediately following the first blast, I observed "two yellow balloons" flying upwards from extreme close proximity to that blast on TV news coverage. Maybe that person was a victim, but its not clear if (she?) was blurred in video to protect identity or maybe ruled out as being involved.

Re:Worst. Coverage. Ever.

[fnj]

You meant Abdulrahman Ali Alharbi doesn't exist? Or that he was never suspected of anything? True he wasn't actually arrested, but his visa was revoked and he's being deported.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. There is a lot of backtracking going on over that. "He's going to be deported; oh wait, maybe not".

"Now, it seems that the man is completely innocent of any wrongdoing."

The police also water cannoned a number of suspected bombs that turned out to be nothing. When I heard the reports of "other bombs" being water cannoned I knew it was the normal over protection.

Yeah, I realized the wording of those reports was completely clueless. I hardly think the procedures were "over protection", but clearly all that was being done was figuratively poking stuff with a long long stick to see if it would blow up - in an abundance of caution - SOP.

Re:Worst. Coverage. Ever.

[Culture20]

Oh wait, there is no such suspect.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/updates-on-investigation-into-multiple-explosions-in-boston/updates-on-investigation-into-multiple-explosions-in-boston

Re:Worst. Coverage. Ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

A dark skinned suspect has been arrested. Oh wait, there is no such suspect.

FBI just released pix of two guys wanted for questioning, and they're both lily-white

Re:Worst. Coverage. Ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

In police speak, everyone's a suspect until cleared.

No. "Suspect" has a pretty specific meaning, and they're always very careful to call them "people of interest" until they actually have a sufficiently coherent story to call them suspects. This lesson was deeply ingrained by Richard Jewell, during that other terrorist attack.

Re:Worst. Coverage. Ever.

[AK Marc]

He was never officially a suspect, but was he suspected? So they never had a suspect, nor any suspect in custody, and CNN reported an arrest, when there was no arrest. When the police refuse to comment, the news will report random guesses. The conservative talk shows are reporting he was "arrested" and often defining arrest differently than the police. Then highlight the special treatment he's getting, armed escort out of the country at taxpayer expense, and such. He was reported to be under armed guard (possibly protective custody, possibly arrest, possibly being in a room near the guards, as all the hospitals were on heightened security.

Nobody knows anything, and the police, not liking to say "we haven't a clue" say things like "we are investigating all leads" and people see police next to a brown man and leap to conclusions.

Re:Worst. Coverage. Ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about worst coverage ever, I think this clip was pretty reliable:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piht4yT57MY

Dunno.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not ask us again in a day or two (when the transcript is ready).

Re:Dunno.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because most of us aren't using hp48's to browse slashdot?

Jon Stewart Said It Well

[eldavojohn]

I can't seem to play the video and there's no transcript but I was impressed with Jon Stewart's drawing and quartering of CNN's coverage. He hit the nail on the head of what "journalistic integrity" has fallen to. Jon Stewart was saying CNN had an 'exclusive' story on the arrest ... exclusive because there was no arrest.

Get on Twitter, say some stuff that sounds legit. Sit back and watch it retweeted, then it'll hit the blogs and finally the 'news.' And all they have to do is try to track down the original source (you) but they seldom do. And that's what "crowdsourced" news has come to. Whenever someone heralds the amazing results from crowdsourced news, it's always post hoc cherry picked results of an actual first hand account or someone who got it right. They seldom look at the entire volume of tweets prior to what we know is true and what is conjecture/wrong.

Re:Jon Stewart Said It Well

[Anonymous Coward]

here it is

Funny as hell, too.

Re:Jon Stewart Said It Well

[rmdingler]

He was hilarious last night, as the best of humor always contains an uncomfortable truth within it. I will view the broad spectrum of newscasts from time to time to see how each is reporting the same event, but in matters on the order of 9/11, CNN has always been my go-to newscast. I find my old jaded self still capable of disappointment today. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, a wretched whore, and an honorable journalist are at a crossroads, equidistant from a pile of gold at the intersection's center. The starting gun sounds and they race to the prize. Who wins? The wretched whore... because now that we're all grown up, we know there's no such thing as the fat man in red, the magic egg-laying rabbit, or the honorable newsman.

Re:Jon Stewart Said It Well

[Solandri]

Get on Twitter, say some stuff that sounds legit. Sit back and watch it retweeted, then it'll hit the blogs and finally the 'news.' And all they have to do is try to track down the original source (you) but they seldom do. And that's what "crowdsourced" news has come to.

That's pretty much how gossip works. In their rush to embrace "social media" and incorporate crowdsourcing into their reporting process, the news organizations have lost sight of what distinguished their profession from mere gossip - a bona fide effort to confirm what you're hearing before you run off repeating it. Instead they've degenerated into repeating it, but pretending adding the magic words "we have an unconfirmed report..." makes it all ok.

Re:Jon Stewart Said It Well

[drinkypoo]

I can't seem to play the video and there's no transcript but I was impressed with Jon Stewart's drawing and quartering of CNN's coverage. He hit the nail on the head of what "journalistic integrity" has fallen to. Jon Stewart was saying CNN had an 'exclusive' story on the arrest ... exclusive because there was no arrest.

Get on Twitter, say some stuff that sounds legit. Sit back and watch it retweeted, then it'll hit the blogs and finally the 'news.' And all they have to do is try to track down the original source (you) but they seldom do. And that's what "crowdsourced" news has come to. Whenever someone heralds the amazing results from crowdsourced news, it's always post hoc cherry picked results of an actual first hand account or someone who got it right. They seldom look at the entire volume of tweets prior to what we know is true and what is conjecture/wrong.

Get on the TV news, say some stuff that sounds legit. Sit back and watch it repeated, then it'll hit the national consciousness and finally be considered "news". And all they have to do is try to track down the original source (you and your news network) but they seldom do. And that's what "news" has come to. Whenever someone heralds the amazing results from the news media, it's always post hoc cherry picked results of an actual first hand account or someone who got it right. They seldom look at the entire volume of "news" coverage prior to what we know is true and what is conjecture/wrong.

Re:Jon Stewart Said It Well

[kaatochacha]

Which is more difficult: Get on Twitter, or Get on the TV News? There's the problem. The bar is so much lower for someone randomly shoving a tweet out there.

Get resigned to further losses of freedom

[Bruce66423]

Whatever else this story will do, it will further undermine any objection to CCTV cameras everywhere, especially if the bomber gets caught as a result of them.

Re:Get resigned to further losses of freedom

[Cornwallis]

"The only thing I ever saw that came close to objective journalism was a closed-circuit TV setup that watched shoplifters in the general store at Woody Creek, Colorado," wrote the late, great Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

Re:Get resigned to further losses of freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Which freedom are you talking about? How does being recorded by CCTV make you less free? Are you sure freedom is the word you want to use?

Re:Get resigned to further losses of freedom

[idlake]

A lot of "CCTV" cameras are private webcams on people's private property. You're saying I shouldn't be able to put a webcam in my window and make the pictures publicly available? I shouldn't be able to take pictures in public spaces? Why not? Should press be permitted to do so?

And if the bombers get caught, doesn't that indicate that these cameras may be useful after all? I mean, the objection to them used to be that they didn't actually help in catching criminals, but one can revise that belief in light of new evidence, right?

transcript or GTFO

[X0563511]

If I wanted video I'd be on Youtube.

Re:transcript or GTFO

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, this * 1000. Sorry DICEdot, but this isn't what I come here for.

Re:transcript or GTFO

[Princeofcups]

If I wanted video I'd be on Youtube.

What did we say overwhelmingly in a recent poll? Something about you should implement what the customer wants, not what the developers want? The world would be a happier place.

Re:transcript or GTFO

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. Same reason why I read a few of the comments to see what I could savage.

Re:transcript or GTFO

[Tom]

mod parent up.

What's this? a clickbait? a troll? really? You have something to say, just say it. Don't make me click a video. I can read faster than most people can talk, so write it out, or I just don't give a fuck. I might care after I know at least the gist of what you want to say, but "hey, this dude has something interesting to say" isn't getting me to listen. There's a billion people on the Internet who all think they have something important to say.

Re:transcript or GTFO

[Anonymous Coward]

I do find it strange that I'd rather read an interview because my attention span is too short for video.

emt?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wtf is an EMT?

Re:emt?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wtf is an EMT?

"E"mergency "M"edical "T"echnician.

IOW ("I"n "O"ther "W"ords), the medical person that works from an ambulance.

Re:emt?

[Anonymous Coward]

emergency medical tech I believe

Re:emt?

[Urban Garlic]

Seriously? Emergency medical technician, aka paramedic. The guy in the ambulance who does the cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.

Re:emt?

[hazem]

Slashdot is bad when it comes to acronyms and assuming everone speaks the same language (figuratively and literally).

In this case, EMT is Emergency Medical Technician. They're often the people who arrive in ambulances. The old US TV show, Emergency! is centered around EMTs, about the same time that EMTs first started to exist in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_medical_technician

Re:emt?

[ArcadeMan]

Seriously, nobody can know all the acronyms from every field.

Re:emt?

[pinkfalcon]

Minor nitpicking here, but this is the internet...

An EMT is not the same as a Paramedic. EMT's can give O2, Intubate, do CPR, insert an IV, provide basic care etc... A Paramedic can give drugs on the scene (after consulting with a dr - usually over the radio), emergency surgery in trauma cases, and probably a lot more. I think it's the difference of 80 hours of school for an EMT versus 400 hours of school for a paramedic, but don't quote me on those numbers.

Re:emt?

[EvanED]

Minor nitpicking here, but this is the internet... An EMT is not the same as a Paramedic

If you hadn't, I'd have. :-)

I would describe it a bit differently though. Essentially, there are four levels of EMT: EMT Basic, EMT Intermediate, EMT Advanced, and Paramedic. That is, all paramedics are EMTs but not vice versa.

A couple times I've considered geting EMT-basic certification and volunteering. I never have, but I did look into the training requirements. An EMT Basic course will usually be one semester; I think the one around here is twice a week for around 3 hours each meeting. That comes out to around 80 hours. I could be wrong, but I think the Intermediate course was another semester. The paramedic curriculum though is a couple years of more classes. The basic and intermediate courses struck me as something that it'd be reasonable for a lot of people to do while still having a day job, but the paramedic curriculum definitely seemed like a much more full-time commitment.

Re:emt?

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd be one thing if the summary was talking about the difference between ALS and BLS or something like that (advanced/basic life support), but I'm with your parent... maybe it's 'cause I watched a lot of Rescue 911 as a kid, but I'd consider "EMT" to be pretty basic knowledge for people living in the US.

(Obviously, this may not apply outside of the US.)

Re:emt?

[Em Adespoton]

(Obviously, this may not apply outside of the US.)

Trust me, it applies even more outside the US. Especially framed with context as it was. Plus, people with ESL* tend to look things up before blaming others for their ignorance :)

*(ESL = English as a Second Language)

Re:emt?

[cffrost]

Seriously, nobody can know all the acronyms from every field.

I've found http://www.acronymfinder.com/ to be helpful. Results are are categorized by field.

Re:emt?

[tehcyder]

Seriously? Emergency medical technician, aka paramedic. The guy in the ambulance who does the cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.

Yes, but everyone knows what "paramedic" means, and I've never heard of an "EMT" before. Leave jargon to those who use it professionally, and if you must introduce some new acronym, please explain it first.

Re:emt?

[kaatochacha]

Voting here from California, EMT is a pretty standard term. I've heard it going back to at least the 90s. Maybe in your area it's not used as much, so you're not familiar with it.

Re:emt?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US at least, the EMTs are usually firemen and are stationed at the fire department, which does make sense since fighting fires is pretty hazardous, and there are very often civilians with burns, smoke inhalation, cuts from broken glass, broken bones from jumping from 2nd story windows to escape the fire, etc.

If you call an ambulance, the fire truck will show up a good ten minutes before the ambulance does.

Can you stop the 24/7 coverage now?

[WillAffleckUW]

Just wondering if all you MSM types can get off your 24/7 cycle and stop going over and over and over this.

My cousin is home from the hospital and her two knee surgeries, and the FBI has the shrapnel from her leg.

K, thanks.

P.S.: Most of my family is NOT WATCHING your coverage. At all.

Re:Can you stop the 24/7 coverage now?

[Anonymous Coward]

The concentration on the Boston bombing is ridiculous considering that Iraq had twenty car bombings that same day. It's ridiculous that they dropped every single other news story to cover only the Boston story, and then repeated the same five minutes' worth of information 24 hours a day. They may as well have shut off the antenna at that point.

Re:Can you stop the 24/7 coverage now?

[AK Marc]

The most important question is, does she get the shrapnel back after the trial (if any)?

Re:Can you stop the 24/7 coverage now?

[WillAffleckUW]

Not sure. Don't think anyone in my family cares about the shrapnel, other than as used for evidence.

Re: Can you stop the 24/7 coverage now?

[Anonymous Coward]

American news companies broadcasting primarily on American channels SHOULD give higher precedence to US news. Because people care most about what's going on in their own country. There is nothing wrong with that.

Re:Can you stop the 24/7 coverage now?

[Anonymous Coward]

The concentration on the Boston bombing is ridiculous considering that Iraq had twenty car bombings that same day. It's ridiculous that they dropped every single other news story to cover only the Boston story, and then repeated the same five minutes' worth of information 24 hours a day. They may as well have shut off the antenna at that point.

To quote the Ninja Turtles cartoon:
"Dog bites man? that's not news, Man Bites dog, that's news!"

The significance of a news story is inversely related to how frequently similar incident occurs. Bombings happen all the time in Iraq so they are only rarely worth international news coverage. Bombings like this are almost unheard of in the United States, which makes it more significant news.

However I will grant you that 24 hour coverage was unnecessary.

Re: Can you stop the 24/7 coverage now?

[lister king of smeg]

American news companies broadcasting primarily on American channels SHOULD give higher precedence to US news. Because people care most about what's going on in their own country. There is nothing wrong with that.

So it took about 5 minutes to give all of the known information play it at the top of the hour and then tell some more news. just because it happened here did not mean they needed to stop all other reporting

Re:Can you stop the 24/7 coverage now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhere there's a great pie chart of deaths recorded solely in the US for April 15th. After the first hour of coverage, enough people had already died on the roads in the US to beat the death toll from the bombs.

As a terrorist attack, this was pathetic. The United States already killed 10 times the number of Afghans at a wedding early that day. But we don't hear about that, because no one cares about the US bombing civilians whose only crime was attending a wedding.

So, yes, I can see why we might break to cover it when it happened, but the fact the Slashdot is STILL posting shit about it is kind of pathetic. It was a small, meaningless attack. It killed a very small number of people and wounded a very small number of people. Worse happens on the roads in the US every day, including that one.

Move on, already! We still have very real problems that we as a nation should be addressing, and a very minor terror attack in a very minor city isn't one of them.

Re:Can you stop the 24/7 coverage now?

[AK Marc]

I know more than one person with souvenirs from war injuries. Something for the kids and their kids kids to talk about.

Re:Can you stop the 24/7 coverage now?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's like saying Norway was ridiculous in its concentrated reporting on Breivik's massacre when many more people are massacred in embattled African countries every single day. There is an expectation of peacefulness in one country above that of the other.

Re:Can you stop the 24/7 coverage now?

[unitron]

Hope your cousin makes full recovery and does so soon.

Were you previously Will in Seattle around here?

Re:Can you stop the 24/7 coverage now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care much what happens in Iraq or who blows each other up there. I do care about it in the US. And I am probably not alone in that when something like this happens, I expect that I can turn on the TV and get the latest update at any time. So I think your preferences are just weird.

Re:Can you stop the 24/7 coverage now?

[sysrammer]

The United States already killed 10 times the number of Afghans at a wedding early that day. But we don't hear about that, because no one cares about the US bombing civilians whose only crime was attending a wedding.

No they didn't. Somebody went through a lot of trouble to spread a reprint of a 2002 article.

Re: Can you stop the 24/7 coverage now?

[s.petry]

However, there was no news coverage about CISPA was there? I'm not sure any News station has every explained it's pros and cons, let alone took a 5 minute break from their "Live Boston" coverage to discuss the vote.

You have to blame something more reasonable than MURAKA NEWS BRAH!

Re:Can you stop the 24/7 coverage now?

[Ottibus]

I don't care much what happens in Iraq or who blows each other up there. I do care about it in the US.

Some of what is happening in Iraq is the result of what the US and others have done there in the last decade or so.

You should care about what your country does, not just about what happens in your country.

Re:Can you stop the 24/7 coverage now?

[Richard_at_work]

Yesterday, the local (as in, this town) news website reported a death from a road traffic incident as the top news story.

That death wasn't reported on the national news, nor was it international news. Why not? Because several people probably died in the same manner that day nationally, and hundreds globally.

So why did it make the local news? Because it was relevant to the locality!

 

Re:Can you stop the 24/7 coverage now?

[tehcyder]

To quote the Ninja Turtles cartoon:

"Dog bites man? that's not news, Man Bites dog, that's news!"

That was around a long time before the Ninja Turtles ever hatched. As in, the late Nineteenth, early Twentieth century.

Fact Checking and Bias

[Atticka]

Where to begin...

The competition to get to the story first is too great and often over shadows the duty of the new to check facts and report an unbiased account of events.

What is missing is any sort of repercussions for reporting false facts, who do we hold accountable? Unfortunately good news simply does not pull in the desired ratings and ad revenues.

Re:Fact Checking and Bias

[White Flame]

And that "competition" is complete bunk. People don't care who has a story first. They go to their usual outlets, and the stories are reported there whenever the info reaches them. The reason they go to the sites or news stations/programs they do is because they prefer the coverage or style of reporting that's going on there.

Can't watch video.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does he say anything about the Boston bombing getting all the attention and the Texas fertilizer plant explosion being some sideshow?

Back to the bombing ... it's been a couple of days and no organization has come forward saying we did it because [insert some reason here.]

I'm beginning to think it is a "lone wolf really pissed off at something so he's gonna take it out on the World" type of thing and the perpetrator in is the woods somewhere.

Re: Can't watch video.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're *beginning* to think that it was a lone wolf? That was my FIRST assumption. Organized terrorist attacks do not happen often in the US. In fact, it hasn't happened in 11 years.

A crazy guy or two killing a bunch of people happens frequently. Until there's a reason to suspect this was an organized attack by a terrorist group, IMO you should assume it's not.

Re: Can't watch video.

[DaHat]

Organized terrorist attacks do not happen often in the US. In fact, it hasn't happened in 11 years.

Depends on how you define 'organized'... and sometimes they do not happen because we get lucky and stop them ahead of time (see Fort Dix six)

Nidal Malik Hasan may have pulled the trigger on his own, but was later discovered to be in communication and plotting with Al-Awlaki.

Oh right... the Obama administration refuses to call that a terrorist attack... only 'work place violence'.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab wasn't exactly a lone wolf as someone gave him that bomb and put him on the plane, similar can be said for Richard Reid (ie not acting alone.

Re:Can't watch video.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does he say anything about the Boston bombing getting all the attention and the Texas fertilizer plant explosion being some sideshow?

Quite a lot, really. In just about every single metric you can possibly name, the explosion in West, Texas was far, far worse than the one at that race. Already five times the number of people have died and there was property destruction that's nearly infinitely larger than those caused by the pressure cooker bombs.

And do you think for a second that Obama will be heading to West, Texas? Hell no, they didn't vote for him, why should he care about them? But a few people die in a state that gave him a very small number of electoral votes? Gotta put in an appearance there!

Re: Can't watch video.

[Anonymous Coward]

karl.fulton@dealer-care.com

No info + 24/hr news cycle = failure

[hsmith]

CNN/NBC/Fox all want to be the first to get the story out. No matter what, for some reason being first though bad info - is good.

Then, they have hours of airtime to fill. So they use unknown "fact" combined with stupid pundits to just fill airtime. It is a bunch of shit in summation.

Re:No info + 24/hr news cycle = failure

[tlhIngan]

CNN/NBC/Fox all want to be the first to get the story out. No matter what, for some reason being first though bad info - is good.

  Then, they have hours of airtime to fill. So they use unknown "fact" combined with stupid pundits to just fill airtime. It is a bunch of shit in summation.

It's the evolution of news. All the media has taken the blogger threat seriously - thinking that they have to compete against Joe Schmoe with a blog reporting on news, and being able to do it quicker means catching up on twitter and other stuff. So quicker becomes better because you want to be the one to break it first, not the one who breaks it 5 minutes later. Plus we've all convinced ourselves that traditional media is dying because the internet can get it out quicker faster and cheaper

Of course, this rolls back into the discussion of something with a long update cycle - newspapers and magazines. There the added value they can have is NOT bringing the latest conjecture, but spend the extra time fact checking and following up because you cannot compete on instant, but you can compete on analysis.

Plus, there's a lot of news I don't care about knowing right this instant - if I find out the next day, that's fine with me. Sometimes knowing immediately isn't very valuable E.g., the bombing - yes it happened. But whether I find out two seconds after or the next day, my life remains unchanged for the most part because I'm nowhere near Boston, nor do I have friends or relatives there. And even if I did, I don't care about what caused it - the only information I'd want is "are they safe?". The type of bomb is irrelevant information in the near term.

Re:No info + 24/hr news cycle = failure

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

CNN/NBC/Fox all want to be the first to get the story out. No matter what, for some reason being first though bad info - is good.

In other words, the fourth estate has been reduced to the level of a slashdot first post.

Re:No info + 24/hr news cycle = failure

[dgatwood]

The problem is that they haven't taken the blogger threat seriously. They've knee-jerked. There's a difference. A serious response to the blogger threat would involve using bloggers as a source of tips, and seeking confirmation before they actually report things, or at the very least, making it clear which reports are unconfirmed.

Instead, their response has been to report faster and less accurately. Thus, ironically, the very actions they took in response to the blogger threat have eliminated the sole remaining advantage that they previously had over blogs, and thus lessened the news media's importance rather than increasing it.

Re:No info + 24/hr news cycle = failure

[micheas]

But only if we were to auto mod the first post to +5 informative.

yellow balloons

[Anonymous Coward]

FBI just released their video and are blurring an image of a person in a light blue coat possibly a heavy set female who has a package (white box with a pink ribbon and three or so yellow balloons.) I observed after the first blast on TV ""yellow balloons"" flying upwards from extremely close proximity to the blast. This hopefully will be looked at also.

Paraphrasing an expert interviewed the day after

[GodfatherofSoul]

People on the inside are giving out information they don't have to people on the outside who don't verify it. Both are primarily motivated by trying to make a name for themselves.

But even if

[kilodelta]

It is domestic terrorism it IS war against America.

And prosthetics may have gotten better, but I know DARPA is also working on some regenerative goodies. In fact there is at least one soldier walking around today who re-grew his own thigh muscle due to a powder of sorts that helped the tissue re-grow as opposed to forming scar tissue. It's fascinating stuff. And I'd much prefer regenerative versus prosthesis.

Re: But even if

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not war. War is when a country declares war on another and/or attacks them. Or, when two sufficiently large armies from the same country attack each other.

Some guy and his buddy setting off a bomb at a marathon (which is what this looks like, since no group has claimed responsibility) is nowhere close to being war. We DO have a name for this event though: a bombing. Bombings have happened numerous times in the past.

Re: But even if

[DaHat]

War is when a country declares war on another and/or attacks them

Says who? The Barbary wars would disagree.. as would the war on drugs, war on poverty, war on homelessness, etc.

We DO have a name for this event though: a bombing

I think the FBI would like to talk to you... as you obviously have more information that is publically known. If it is that simple... great, but do not treat a lack of claim of credit as an assurance that this was not a foreign run operation.

Why don't we wait to see what the facts say once they've been collected?

Re: But even if

[Anonymous Coward]

Barbary wars would disagree
The Pasha of Tripoli declared war in a by destroying a flag mast, something that was customary on sea for a long time before that war. To burn or attack a flag on purpose was declaration of war. The symbol of flag burning carries on today. There was also a bilateral signing of a peace treaty, something that often happens after a war is ceased by mutual consent. In the grand scale of things, it may have been a relatively minor tussle, but war is war, and congress did give the president authority to "deal with it", without formally declaring war.

war on drugs, war on poverty, war on homelessness

In the context of the goings on in Mexico, that surely is a war involving non-state actors. You could have also referenced any number of guerrilla wars. However, "the war on drugs" is a political philosophy which causes people to die. Big difference. When they send armed soldiers out to kill poverty and homelessness, then we can finally call those wars, and on that day you might look a bit less down-syndromey.

Cable news not what it was supposed to be

[GodfatherofSoul]

Everyone thought dedicated news channels would mean dedicated new coverage. These for-profit news channels are trying to maximize their news coverage dollar and that usually means making the most out of the least. Late last night I watched a sheriff interviewed who was extremely careful not to give out even estimates of numbers. He was very disciplined and never speculated; at the most saying it could have been a criminal act or it could have been an industrial accident.

When a reporter was later asked to summarize his comments, she emphasis (paraphrasing) "he said it *could* have been a criminal act. That's an interesting choice of words." So even when there's no news, that gets turned into something!

Look at the Jodi Arias trial that's been featured on HLN for weeks now. An open-and-shut murder tiral about a pretty girl with some irrelevant sordid sexual details has become their primary focus and they're milking it for every last graphic sexual and violent detail.

Re:Cable news not what it was supposed to be

[SternisheFan]

I stopped watching HLN the moment Nancy Grace(less) went for the ratings grab interview of that kidnapped girl and kept pressing her for details if she was raped. Grace was pushing for any statement from the girl that would make the next days headlines, and showed what a lousy, heartless and uncaring bully she really is. That she still has a show is disgraceful.

Come to think of it, that was the moment I lost interest in most any type of sensationalist news coverage on TV. If you are only reporting conjecture, and don't have any clear cut facts, I move on.

Re:Cable news not what it was supposed to be

[MightyMartian]

The OJ Simpson coverage laid the groundwork for the kind of breathless "journalism" we see today. Frankly I don't watch TV news any more. It's nauseating.

Re:Cable news not what it was supposed to be

[coastwalker]

I quit watching TV in 1983 in the UK because even then it was apparent that everything on it was heading towards being packaged as limp light entertainment. 24 Hour news took the news all the way. I feel sorry for my parents who still watch it and are depressed because they think civilization is falling apart. There is lots more going on in the world than rapes of 11 year olds or measles outbreaks or bombs at Marathons, a million refugees from Syria or two or three habitable planets being found come to mind - but "news" is all about what scares the crap out of you because we can spin it to sound like it might happen to you - tomorrow!

Re:Cable news not what it was supposed to be

[SternisheFan]

An old adage is, "Bad news sells newspapers", and bad news on TV keeps people tuned in through the commercials. Staying away from television altogether might just lead to a happier life, if not just not paying for cable every month.

There is a lot of good going on in this life, but you have to look for it.

Re:Cable news not what it was supposed to be

[LongearedBat]

Even older adages are: "Ignorance is bliss." and "Knowledge is power."

If only we had that choice. Unfortunately we don't get actual knowledge in the news. Which, as you say, leaves only the 1st option as a viable alternative.

But maybe (tinfoil hat here) that is intentional. Less knowledge to the plebs, means less power to the plebs.

Re:Cable news not what it was supposed to be

[sysrammer]

The OJ Simpson coverage laid the groundwork for the kind of breathless "journalism" we see today.

I think you nailed it.

Re:Cable news not what it was supposed to be

[tehcyder]

TV news can only give a selective view of what's going on. The same is true of every other sort of media, but at least with a newspaper you get the opportunity to read about travel news, minority sport news, theatre review news, or many other types of niche interest (as well as a broader coverage of national and international news). And at least you are exposed to a variety of things, both good, bad and neutral.

But TV/internet news is good for immediacy, I just don't see why you feel your parents are being forced to watch it 24/7.

Nothing we are doing is going to change this

[Anonymous Coward]

People have been complaining about CNN and 24hr news since it went on air. Did it help? No, because you still tune in and they get paid. Stop watching it, or it will stay around.

Stop complaining about it

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, stop fucking watching the 24 hr news channels. If you all weren't watching, then they wouldn't be making any money. You can't complain about something that you regularly participate in willingly. No one is FORCING YOU to pay attention to this fucking shit.

Re:Stop complaining about it

[LoRdTAW]

I take the news in small doses. To be honest the only coverage of the boston marathon bombings I have read came from Slashdot and the few links that were posted. When the Sandy Hook shootings happened I also only skimmed a few slashdot articles and links.

I firmly believe the 24 hour news coverage and other non stop forms of reporting of major incidents are more harmful to the public than the incidents themselves. What I mean by harmful is the stress it induces in everyday people who are what I like to call victims. Victims of sensationalist, overblown media coverage which seeks to ingrain the morbid and macabre into our lives. My life has enough stress, why do I need more?

It might sound odd but I don't give two shits about the news. I glance a few headlines on google news every now and then and read Slashdot daily. Its enough to keep abreast of the news without being pummeled by it.

Looks like

[amightywind]

Looks like muslims to me. We need to get them out of the country.

SImple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because fast trumps right every time.

Local coverage...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just watched the local coverage "breaking news". The interrrupted show early, screwed up the sound, and then went ON and ON after it was over. And they showed footage the FBI specifically said not to use and said it was what the FBI said to use for identifying the suspects. In short, they are idiots.

Too much coverage

[Ol Olsoc]

It sounds odd to say it in this day and age, but there is simply too much coverage of breaking events like this.

We all act as if those stupid ignorant media people are ridiculous, but they are just doing what every one of us does. We speculate, we come up with little stories and runors. Here you have someone talking to a clip of the carnage, that is compiled from 20 or so pieces, being shown over and over again for 30 minutes, and they have to say something. So you get stupid stuff being said. Just like we were doing in front of our televisions while watching that 30 minutes of repetitive footage.

The problem is that the news agencies feel they have to all scurry over and only cover one thing. But there isn't much to cover at the moment. So there you have it. People being people.

Re:Too much coverage

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, too much coverage. "People being people" to me means "people doing evil and depraved things". I think humanity has always done gross and awful things, now we just hear about it a lot more because of this age of instant information. I feel like we're in a sort of limbo right now as a culture. We all see these atrocities being committed, yet we do nothing but say "what a shame" and then move on to the next tragedy.

What is the point of this story?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the point of this slashdot story?
Generate a bunch of page hits for a journalist that I have never heard of before and don't really care about?

Is there a question to ask?
Or is it just a one paragraph opinion piece because the editor/submitter doesn't have the skills to write a proper opinion piece?

To me this is a meta-story - too bad I can't meta-click to show my disdain for it.

It worked

[Anonymous Coward]

CISPA was approved after all, so no need to keep doing rounds about this. Now keep pushing for more security so the remaining freedom that used to be isn't there anymore.

News Coverage = Animated GIF

[linebackn]

Most of the "news coverage" right at the start could have been replaced by a 5 second looping animated GIF.

Worse yet, a few hours later some of the stations around here were showing repeating footage clips of people running and screaming with no obvious indication it was recorded earlier to try and make it seem like it was still happening.

9/11 - Iraq - North Korea - Boston Marathon

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is hysteria. It's apparently the only thing that sells anymore.

A couple of weeks ago CNN had a rare moment of lucid reflection when it started talking about whether or not the news coverage following 9/11 and leading into the Iraq War was irresponsible.

Then North Korea goes into its silliness that it gets into every five years or so, and CNN was suddenly "Ermagerd Nerks!!", and they were changing pictures every hour to put up some new scary nuke-related graphic, throwing up Betteridge's law violations with every new detail that seemed to emerge, getting quotes from Dick Cheney about the perceived threat (irony of ironies there). Then, all of a sudden, an ACTUAL disaster occurs that nobody saw coming, and the hysteria's gone into overdrive.

But hey, humans crave information. Too bad it's not schools giving it to them anymore.

Colbert Gets It

[Flere Imsaho]

As usual, Stephen Colbert gets to the truthiness of the rush to be first.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/416046/june-28-2012/cable-news-gaffe-on-obamacare-supreme-court-ruling

Re:Colbert Gets It

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone know how to get Colbert/Stewart to play in Linux Mint 14? It used to work, the one day stopped, and so I started watching it in Windows on a laptop. Then it started working in Linux again one day, and so I watched it there for about a month, then it stopped working again and hasn't worked for several months now. So I've just stopped watching it because I don't care to keep swapping hard drives in that laptop.

It sure would be nice if I could get the video to play again.

Re:Colbert Gets It

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd find it far easier just to stop watching Colbert/Stewart. We complain about news cycles being hyperbolic and ridiculous, then let both of these jokers play hard news when it suits them, then shuffle off with a magic trick of "oh, i'm just kidding" if they get caught wrong or overblown.. I can't stand that.

Re:Colbert Gets It

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I just stuck the Windows hard drive back in the laptop yesterday to watch a few episodes. Now I remember why I found it so easy to kick the habit when they stopped playing in Linux.

Stewart really doesn't give a shit if he's making any sense at all as long as he's supporting the liberal side of an issue. Previously it was only a problem when something about global warming would come up, but with the recent debate over gun control, he's now saying something stupid in every single episode. In one episode they were making fun of a gun supporter because they wouldn't even accept a one hour waiting limit on gun purchases, as if he should say "well, whatever, that's not a huge infringement of my rights, so I'll let you have that" rather than insist that if they're going to infringe his rights at all, it damn well should be in some way that is honestly going to change something for the better, rather than it just be some minor concession to pacify the anti-gun crowd. Similarly, months ago after the gun-supporters were complaining about the nonsensical nature of the proposed legislation, Stewart responded that they should participate in writing the legislation if they don't want it to be so lame, as if it's their problem to write laws that make sense in order to change things that they don't believe need to be changed. If the pro-gun side doesn't think there's a problem, then demanding that they help write anti-gun legislation is ridiculous, and if the anti-gun side can't write legislation that isn't ridiculous without their help, then perhaps they need to re-examine whether or not they should even be involved in the debate, because they clearly don't understand what the actual problems are. ...but no, it seems that Stewart's angle is "well, the liberals are always correct, so just say anything that kind of makes sense and if anyone calls you on it, then you're a comedy show, not a news show."

I might still watch Colbert though, if it ever started working in Linux again.

You learn something every day

[Anonymous Coward]

...ok so I knew that I could google something. I had assumed I could skype. But until today I never knew I could facebook.

Huge problem with media

[b4upoo]

The most pressing point is not about Boston and may have nothing to do with Al Quiida at all. The real problem is frequency of incidents.
We are seeing more and more people or groups acting out in violent ways. The media and politicians can make remarks all day long but the public is
missing the point. Here we have several bombs made from pressure cookers. About one week back we had some nut attack 14 people with some sort of box cutter or utility knife. In the mean time we have had organized killings of people in public jobs such as prison wardens. Then we have the recurring loonies who have urges to shoot school kids or even college kids. There are so many incidents it is hard to keep track of them. I do not believe it is bad diet or lead in the drinking water. I think we simply have a population under too much pressure and people are acting out. Yet our politicians will not address the real problems. For example many in congress would like more background checks on gun purchases. They are smart enough to give lip service to claim advancing the mental health care system but that is a huge lie. America has never funded mental health and is not about to provide decent funding for mental health. And it gets even worse. The fertilizer plant explosion in Texas may well be a worse problem than the Boston incident. The company involved has already admitted that they failed to have mandatory fire and incident equipment in place. In a very real way that company may well have been far more outrageous than the nut that placed the bombs in Boston. Yet media won't jump on it at all. I can also tell you that Ft. Lauderdale had a fertilizer plant burn a few decades ago and the responding firemen came down with cancer almost universally. Apparently the gasses expelled in a fertilizer plant fire tend to be very, very lethal in the long term. Where is the media on this? Frankly American news media is really in the crapper these days.

Re:Huge problem with media

[Anonymous Coward]

... I think we simply have a population under too much pressure and people are acting out.

A number of people have been predicting the collapse of the great USA for the last decade. First they had the GFC and now a domestic terrorist every month. Maybe this is what the beginning of the end looks like.

Re:Huge problem with media

[Anonymous Coward]

Truth and reasoned statements are not mass-marketable products.

The media are in business to make money. They have no other goals whatsoever. The typical TV watching American wants to 'buy' sensationalist horseshit with their budget of viewing hours.

Blame 60 Minutes

[BLKMGK]

No, seriously. Up until 60 Minutes came along News was considered a sort of loss leader for networks. It was something they felt required to have but no one expected to make money at it. They simply reported the facts and tried to guess the weather. Then 60 Minutes came along. No one expected it would make money. I mean a news show making money? No way! Surprise, it made money. It did REALLY well. Everyone had to have one and then they began to realize they could draw eyes to their news shows. Ever since then it's been downhill. We now have multiple channels dedicated to nothing but "news" and by god if there's nothing exciting going on we'll dig something up! Investigative reporting? Meh, not so much. That requires time and work and someone might scoop us! No, now they just report things as fast as they can and they make them as exciting as they can to draw eyes. The more fear the more people turn on their TV sets and gawk at the shows and yes inevitably the ads. the commercialization of "news" was one of THE worst things to happen to television and hell even print media. One need only look as far as the grocery checkout to figure out how that went too. Why we've even got news channels that skew and spin their views for specific markets. How else can you explain the Faux News channel and CNN and MSNBC all spinning the same stories in different directions? they have all targeted a demographic for their "news" and want eyeballs for their ads.

Frankly it's pretty damned disgusting and disheartening. If you're old enough at all to remember a time when we had news shows with just a scrap of integrity you realize just how far we've fallen all in the name of making a fucking dollar. Bleah!

P.S. Think I'm full of it? My citation after a 5 second Google search... http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/102153/The-Transformation-of-Network-News.aspx

Re:Blame 60 Minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok... its really not news until it gets coverage on Slashdot.

I get a pretty good idea after reading the ten or so insightful comments some of us take the trouble to post.... lots of junk, but there will usually be a few people who sanely see what happened and offer an intelligent reply. I feel a lot better after running it the flagpole and see who salutes.

Re:Blame 60 Minutes

[s.petry]

Not that long ago, around 10'ish years every major news agency had investigative reporters. Living in Detroit, there was Steve Smith covering the Kwame scandals. Before that, he had stories on corruption in all kinds of other areas. Public service workers (tracking them working a few hours a week getting paid for 40 hrs), police corruption, utilities corruption, etc.. It was the highest rated show in Detroit for years. It was real journalism.

Long before Kwame went to trial for anything big, they fired him. The best rated show in Detroit was canned for no visible reason. Other news agencies had their local reporter too. All of them were canned, and there went all investigative journalism in Detroit. AP stories was it, nothing else. About the same time, this happened in other major markets as well. I have relatives and friends in at least 8 other major cities. Nashville, Jersey, Chicago, etc..

Maybe it was simply because of the money. Cheaper to get AP news than pay a reporter. But to lose viewers and ratings at the same time means they lost what they saved. Trust me, I'm not immune to noticing that companies do some really idiotic things to make a quick buck.. but I thought the News issue was bigger. Still do as a matter of fact. Way too many people were warning us about what was coming. You have to look to find them, but they were there. I remember a great speech by a celebrity concerned when they allowed Rupert Murdoch to monopolize most of the News Networks. "What happens when their interests, and the AP's interests, no longer match yours?" is a great quote. We never heard most of the people yelling "STOP IT", because most of the media was already under the control of less than a handful of people.

Third Suspect??

[Anonymous Coward]

How obviously suspect does it seem to anyone else that a third man who crosses the crosswalk and comes into step an equal distance behind suspect number 2 carrying a hand bag that hardly swings forward and back or side to side and looks as though it weighs 20 pounds or more? This man also has on his back a black backpack and is fudging around with a cell phone. No one mentions this guy on the news, yet he looks more like a person of interest in the FBI's released video than even the other two, although they definitely look like they could be involved as well at 13 mins before the blasts.

Poynter.org

[oneiros27]

I'm sure it'll come up sooner or later if you follow Poynter -- they cover journalism / misdeeds of journalists / etc.

They've got a pretty good roundup of criticisms, mostly in regard to some news channels refusing to apologize for their errors.

He wrote for eWeek...

[QuietLagoon]

... and he considers himself above the fray of bad journalism?

.
Talk about the irony of narcissism.

When there is no news make up some

[Dorianny]

News networks don't reports news. What they do is 24/7 real life drama. If they simply changed the "news" on their labels to "reality TV" all the issues would be solved.

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy is not angry? (well I am).

This is not an attack on America? (were the victims all Elbonians?)

This was not an effective terror attack? (Those losing limbs and the families of those who lost their lives may disagree).

The bombs would be more effective if not placed near trained medical personnel? (Would be terrorists thank you for this tip).

FOX Business News

[Anonymous Coward]

UNLESS you are talking FOX Business News, the socalled news channels are ENTERTAINMENT only, portraying never-ending reality show figures like the clown-with-ears and other White House related cartoons.

Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

The 'event' was orchestrated by the White House, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice !

I challenge Americans to the CTV Challenge

[Anonymous Coward]

I watched a lot of CNN earlier tonight, but when the CTV news came on, I switched over. I learned more, in detail, about several stories going on in the world (including the Boston bombing, and the Waco explosion) in a half hour of well written and well produced news than I did in several hours of ridiculous CNN coverage of nothing but the same clips played over and over and over again. And this wasn't even a particularly good night for CTV news - pretty average, but they completely blew CNN out of the water.

I challenge Americans to watch some CTV News coverage (if you can get it in your area, or find some clips online, if you can). And ask yourself, why are you satisfied with the TERRIBLE state of news in your country?

What the real conspiracy is for 11/9

[Anonymous Coward]

Corruption.

The buildings were SUPPOSED to handle this, but didn't. Someone built it shoddily and pocketed the difference.

Someone wealthy and connected, because they're the only ones to get such a contract.

Now, either this was known at the time and covered up with the going-apeshit-against-terrism or found out after the going-apeshit and therefore if the actual problem had been stated, the company concerned would have been ripped apart. Either case, the lack of SOP in this case (engineers seeing WHY it failed so that future designs can be made resistant to this) occurred.

Re:What the real conspiracy is for 11/9

[s.petry]

It's not a bad hypothetical, but it's not based in fact any more than what you read on conspiracy sites are fact, or what the Government released was fact. There are lots of hypothetical situations, not all of them require the Devil or Dr. Evil. People have been trained to believe that anyone asking questions is a lunatic, and trained further to never question it themselves. Truth is, we don't have a set of facts to deal with and nobody in the Government is willing to open an investigation, even though it has been proven over and over that their released explanations are impossible.

Education fail there.

[Anonymous Coward]

You've heard that Marx coined the term "political correctness" but you don't know any more than that about it.

He coined the term as a bad thing. It was a way to suppress truth that would be used to opppress the proletariat by telling him he "couldn't say that". But here you are using it as if PC was something Marx invented and wanted spread to promote communism.

Indeed, the real use of PC is the USA, where you can't tell some godbotherer that there's no such fucking thing as god, or some gun nut that there shouldn't be any guns, or that the USA isn't the bestest freest gods own country wonderful place to be.

Re:Education fail there.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. That's just wrong. Misuse of PC, in current context, is primarily in speech directed towards modern day protected classes, and framing a statement, often ludicrously, in the best possible light.

Posts about stuff that doesn't belong on slashdot.

[StormyWeather]

This was a great interview. Thank you Slashdot for not being tunnel visioned into only tech.

See also News Wipe

[j-b0y]

Charlie Brooker did a longer series (NewsWipe) on the problems of reporting in the 24h rolling news world and the overall decline of TV news journalism over the years; check them out on YouTube.

a scene out of Fahrenheit 451

[peter303]

At the beginning of the television age a half century ago Ray Bradbury predict the media's perverse relationship with realtime crime as a side-plot in his novel Fahrenheit 451. In the book there are even "fake crimes" or incorrect victims just to keep the excitement up. The OJ Bronco chase 20 years ago was a milestone in this genre. I personally remain skeptical about early so-called facts in a crime scene. Incorrect data gets passed around by rumor easily.

I wonder how the newest media, social media, fits into this picture. Its faster, and "bottom up" compared to TV's "top down". But I dont think it is any more or less accurate than conventional broadcast media. I dont know if ray any insights in social media in the final years of his life.

AT the Farmont Plaza Hotel

[Martin S.]

I noticed the Media kept saying the explosions where AT the Farmont Plaza Hotel for several hours afterwards. When even a cursory comparing of the many photos to Google maps showed they were in fact several hundred meters away.

Nope, Marx did exactly as I said. And you know it

[Anonymous Coward]

You start off with "That's just wrong" but then go to say: "in current context". Since my post was about its ORIGINAL CONTEXT, which is the ONLY CONTEXT in which Marx is relevant.

Bait switching is only done by the knowingly wrong.

Well, if it had fact, it wouldn't be conjecture.

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you had to have all facts before you make a hypothesis, we'd still by trying to find all the facts about "stuff falls down".

SOP is that when such a disaster happens, the wreckage is examined immediately to derermine if there was a flaw at fault.

DID NOT HAPPEN.

It should easily have sustained itself, even though the fire would have damaged most of the nearby non-metal structure, the building itself would not have collapsed.

THIS DID HAPPEN.

The hypothesis that the building was short-changed for reasons of greed is easily supported by all we know: building to regulation is more expensive than building to a substandard level.

It could easily be seen by the people doing this as "absolutely no problem whatsoever" since why the hell would someone fly a frickin plane into the building? So why put all that effort into it to make it withstand that?

Hell, the closest it could have come to a government conspiracy is that something leaked about the problem and the government sat on it rather than warn or close the buildings and the terrorists used this info to determine that these two tall structures could be the perfect target: no other skyscraper would give such a high potential kill count, since they could have been built to spec and survive such a collision.

Occam's razor is often misquoted. It's not the simplest explanation, its the one that requires least action.

And this hypothesis is very much the least action.

Greed, hope and connections are all that's required. Possibly a bit of a paper trail of the info getting to the terrorists about the bogus build quality is the only extreme action that would square it all up, and then only to explain why these two buildings were chosen rather than the more symbolic buildings available elsewhere in NYC, or the more casualty-rich targets of the busy airports with lots of fuelled planes sitting on them.

It's based in fact as much as gravitational theory is based in it: the explanation given explains the phenomena consistently with the least amount of hand-wavium.

Re:Well, if it had fact, it wouldn't be conjecture

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's start out with this from an earlier post, since it sets the tone:

The buildings were SUPPOSED to handle this, but didn't.

No, they were NOT supposed to. WTC 1 & 2 were designed to withstand airplane crashes, but not all crashes are the same...

The documented design goal was to stay standing if hit by something the size of a 707, at low speed, with low fuel. They were anticipating an arriving aircraft getting lost in the fog at low altitude -- an accident, not a terrorist attack. But the terrorists deliberately sought to maximize damage. They hijacked larger airplanes on outbound cross-continent flights, full of fuel, ensuring the post-crash fire would be very bad. And they crashed at very high speeds. The total impact energy was probably between 4x and 8x the planned worst case WTC's designers used while engineering the building.

(Napkin math backup: Kinetic energy equals 0.5 * mass * velocity^2. The 767-200 and 767-200ER are significantly heavier than the 707 when all are unloaded, and they were fueled up rather than mostly empty as an arriving aircraft would be, so they were more than 1x and probably less than 2x as massive. Approach and landing speeds for jet airliners are significantly below 200 MPH, but the terrorist pilots deliberately impacted at over 400 MPH, giving a minimum multiplier of 4x based on velocity alone.)

SOP is that when such a disaster happens, the wreckage is examined immediately to derermine if there was a flaw at fault.

DID NOT HAPPEN.

DID HAPPEN. WELL DOCUMENTED IN PUBLIC BY EASILY OBTAINED 9/11 COMMISSION REPORTS.

It should easily have sustained itself, even though the fire would have damaged most of the nearby non-metal structure, the building itself would not have collapsed.

THIS DID HAPPEN.

YES BUILDINGS DID FALL DOWN. BUT YOUR REASONING IS TOTAL FUCKING BULLSHIT.

"Non-metal structure"? The structural materials in WTC 1 & 2 were concrete and steel. The material supporting the building's weight was almost 100% steel, from what I recall (most of the concrete was in floor slabs).

Steel is not a magical wonder-material which retains 100% strength at any temperature. Heat it up, and it'll soften and lose much of its strength long before it reaches melting temperature. That's why steel-framed buildings are required to have fire insulation on the steel girders. Without it, they wouldn't stand very long in a fire. With it, they can stand for a while, but not forever. The fire has to be put out, or the building will fall.

Yes, that does mean the WTC towers likely would've been brought down by the 9/11 fires alone, even if you could've magically taken away the impact damage. There was simply too much fuel to control them. The impact damage accelerated the process, both by severing lots of important structure (both the outer skin and internal girders) and by stripping fire insulation from otherwise intact columns in the building's core (400+ MPH fluid and debris impact tends to do that).

The hypothesis that the building was short-changed for reasons of greed is easily supported by all we know: building to regulation is more expensive than building to a substandard level.

That hypothesis is disproven by actually examining the facts of the matter. But you don't want to be bothered, you just want to wank about how Occam is on your side.

Speaking of Occam, what is the practical difference between "least action" and "simplest"? Nothing. You can use either wording and mean the same thing. Stop trying to puff yourself up by sneering about how everyone else is doing Occam wrong. And you're missing the real point of Occam too: the idea was that when theorizing, you shouldn't introduce complications in your theories before you've figured out whether they're needed, not that complex explanations are always wrong.

A better wording of how Occam's razor is u

terrorism

[jdwoods]

Fight terrorism. Stop being afraid!

I'm not sure I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

Your assertion are in the main reasonable but I think you are mistaken if you think these are the root of the economic problem. I'm going to make a largely unsupported assertion but if you do a little research I think you will have to agree: historically the USA invented little but did an outstanding job of commoditising others' ideas. For example Ford actually didn't invent the assembly line, he adapted the idea from European textile mills. You could argue that this is innovation on the basis that the application of the idea to the manufacture of motor vehicles was of literally changed the world, but the key insight here is that America's prosperity hinged on mass production.

I think you'll find that the root of America's economic malaise is the fact that other countries now do "better and cheaper" better and cheaper. All the things you mentioned certainly don't help, but I think the problem is bigger and older than you suggest.