A Blow To Useless Bullshit

I have a link to the Internet Movie Database on the sidebar.

One of the things I try not to foster – one of the reasons this blog is here to provide an escape from – is useless bullshit. By useless bullshit, I mean stories about Tom Cruise, shark attacks, cats in trees, product porn, etc.. We are inundated with it. It used to be that the only place you would find it was on daytime television and the checkout counter at the local grocery store. Now it’s everywhere. It is for this reason (as well as to sponsor critical thinking, etc.) that I started this blog. I’m still not even comfortable saying that I have a blog because so many other blogs are filled with useless bullshit.

Anyhow – I will admit that the IMDB can be a source of useless bullshit from time to time. However, strikingly, they are one of the few widely-read web publications to carry reports on the plight of journalism. In particular, these are found in their mid-day Studio Briefing report. Much is said about how a ‘fake news show’ like The Daily Show can pose more challenging questions than all of the other networks combined. In the same way, IMDB’s Studio Briefing – usually a list of box office reports and summations of TV/film biz news – stands as one of the few places I’ve seen (and I sweep the net’s news sites every day) to carry releases that categorize corruption and manipulation in the media in a way that is decidedly non-partisan. Studio Briefing, for the record, is a syndicated daily report, edited by Lew Irwin.

From today’s Studio Briefing:

Iraqi Journalists Say They’ve Become Targets

The revelation that the U.S. government has paid Iraqi newspapers to plant favorable stories has increased the danger for Iraqi journalists, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, an Iraqi photojournalist told a Reuters forum Wednesday. Appearing on a panel discussion in New York, Abdul-Ahad remarked, “How do you expect decent Iraqi journalists to go into the streets and write a positive story? Everyone would be pointing at them saying, ‘You’ve been paid by the Americans.'” Zaki Chehab of the London-based Arab newspaper Al Hayat remarked that Arab or Iraqi journalists now must work secretly for fear of being suspected of collaboration. Meanwhile, CBS News said Tuesday that the U.S. military has agreed to Iraqi cameraman Abdul Ameer Hussein, who had been held in custody for one year without charge after he was wounded by U.S. forces in Mosul while covering clashes with insurgents for the network in Mosul. After Hussein was cleared by an Iraqi court, guards stated at the courthouse threatened journalists covering the trial, with one guard reportedly shooting a gun into the air, then pointing it at a camera before the journalists scattered.

The fact that this only shows up prominently on a headline-list dedicated to TV/film info is distressing, but I’m thankful that the editorial team at IMDB is carrying it. Kudos.

Studio Briefing also provided another interesting tidbit:

Corporations Placing Fake News on Local Stations, Says Report

Television stations throughout the country, including several in the largest markets, are continuing to air video news releases produced by large corporations without disclosing the source, according to a study by the Wisconsin-based Center for Media and Democracy and reported in today’s (Thursday) New York Times.The Center, which monitored news programs on 69 stations over the past 10 months, said that the stations attempted to blend the fake news into their broadcasts by having reporters or anchors read scripts supplied by the corporations that produced the videos and in some instances introduced company publicists as if they were actual reporters. The Center said that it plans to post some of the original video news releases, along with examples of how the stations used them, on its website, www.prwatch.org.

Just goes to show that you don’t have to be the Globe & Mail or CNN to carry something pertinent.