When we talk about the dangers of the degradation of newspapers, and the rise of "journalism products," such as the execrable Metro free subway rags, this is what we mean. (Here is the text of the State of the Union, in case you were too busy playing videogames and having a life last night.) It's not like the State of the Union is much more than political theater, sure, but next-level cynicism does some serious eroding of a citizen's ability to think and respond constructively. Lazy advertising-vehicle "news" products engineered by demonic Swedes and thrown together by a warren of garbage-crunchers and distributed to harried subway commuters are actively undermining of democracy. (It's not all bad news: at least on the inside of the paper, they're still performing some journalism, such as their recently fairly substantial look at the NYPD's "issues.")
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
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I thought he was doing fine until he got to education.
I liked the appeal to the military's capacity to get along and focus on a problem, sort of, but would have suggested he close with it. After whaling on the GOP for an hour.
Speaking of next-level cynicism: "Debate: What are they lying about now?" Although it's likely merited in this case.
Has journalism descended into next-level cynicism, or is it simply an extension of the same attitude that has infected our political system at larOH MY GOD A FREE 6 MONTH NETFLIX SUBSCRIPTION!
This is the happiest day of my life.
Was it just me, or was he totally "HYDROFRACKING WOOOOOOOOOO!"
@C_Webb Yes. Between that and the WOOOOOO MANUFACTURING JOBS ARE CHEAP HERE NOW it felt like an Economic Pledge to Michigan-Indiana-Ohio-Pennsylvania, Influential Rich People Division.
These publications perform a very valuable service for those of us with dogs who've run out of poop bags. I feel guilty whenever I use someone's glossy free advertising rag with high production values and Kirsten Dunst on the cover.
So, anyone notice him promise to stop the Department of the Interior from giving land it had no right to give over to drillers and loggers, and instead giving land it had no right to give over to windmill farms? Everyone in my watch party applauded, and I almost barfed. And then Holder popped up on screen, and everyone yelled "Lando!" and we all drank, because, involved citizens. Anyway.
@Multiphasic And by Holder I mean Kathleen Sibelius, obv.
Jeepers. If they're this harsh to the president their Oscar coverage must be blistering.
I wouldn't worry about it too much, I doubt the average Metro reader votes anyway.
@Clarence Rosario I doubt the average Metro reader reads.
But the hard sudoku in Metro is actually hard and therefore totally awesome.
@brent_cox Thanks Brent!
What would have been a preferable headline about the speech "America is BACK, BABY!". MASTERLOCK!!!!
The Metro is simply more honest and concise. Most commuters are too busy to keep up with Obama's BS. Leave the "deep" thinking to the intellectuals who read the Times and The New Yorker, the sort of people who need to be lied to in order to make it through the day.
@Lockheed Ventura Gotta agree with you here. I don't think it's all that cynical to report the simple fact that political speeches in an election year... are about politics.
There wasn't enough room for "Obama Gives Same Bullshit-Level SOTU That He and Every President Before Him Going Back to Kennedy Is Given, with Addition of Horrible Spilled Milk Joke and a Threat to End Congressional Insider Trading That While a Good Idea Will Go Nowhere. Also Windmills in Yosemite."
Don't worry. Aaron Sorkin's new show about journalists is gonna turn everything around!
The Chicago version of this garbage is called The RedEye and I go straight to the crossword puzzle (it's nice and easy) not letting the rest of the printed words infect my brain.
I've read this three times, and I still don't know what your point is.
@Charles Thomas@twitter "Lazy advertising-vehicle "news" products engineered by demonic Swedes and thrown together by a warren of garbage-crunchers and distributed to harried subway commuters are actively undermining of democracy." That makes a pretty descriptive point in one sentence, in my opinion.
@Charles Thomas@twitter It's something about how a glib cynicism toward democracy and political apathy are mutually reinforcing, Charles.
If you're willing to go deeper on this—while we have you here with your avatar's arms folded across its chest in a pose demanding answers—the point is (probably) that Metro is a cheap vessel for advertising with content farm-level "editorial" and "news" product wrapped around it. It has no interest in deep political analysis and no publishing motive other than to pull eyeballs toward it without offending advertisers.
Even though it hasn't been the 1990's for a long time, we still live in a culture where having a real opinion on an issue is being a partisan, being positive about everything sounds idiotic and the only cost-effective editorial pose is to be uniformly slacker cynical about everything—which (GOD KNOWS WHY, HONESTLY.) still parses as "smart" analysis to the average reader.
I hope that helps, but given that you're a rabid libertarian, I'm kinda just expecting a link to a shitty Peter Bagge comic or some self-assured bullshit about the unimpeachable benevolent wisdom of markets.
Markets are stupid, Charles Thomas. And Plus Also: They make people act like total assholes, even people who aren't total assholes to begin with.
@Charles Thomas@twitter Also, you don't look very good in that shirt!
(Find out which of the two shirts I mean AFTER THE JUMP)
I am going to assume that Kinnevik, the Swedish investment company that owns Metro, is run by the same billionaire, Nazi-collaborating, rape-happy industrialists that inspired the bad guys in Stieg Larsson's Millennium novels.
Their being into torture would also explain why Metro's hard sudoku is actually hard.
Their ad sales team visited my job when they were first starting out in NYC. They were like Amway zombies.
I don't know what my morning commute would be like without the front-page mattress ads and defensive (of Metro) transport columnist and attempting-to-be-funny wacky crime story headlines in the Express.
But you know, that's WaPo, so it's pretty much Woodward + Bernstein-level shit all the time. (Did you know there is second Air & Space Museum by Dulles Airport?)
I spent three months in Paris last year, trying to learn French, and the French version of the Metro street rag was invaluable. So the English version is probably a boon to a whole host of folks trying to learn English. Possibly more so than sentence structures like "Lazy .... products ... are actively undermining of democracy" or tags like "journalismism". And, for what it's worth, most of the Swedes I've met have been far too phlegmatic to warrant serious consideration for demon status.