An owl's eye view of forests and trees

Tag: Media

Torchlight Media: The Schoolyard Bully Pulpit Part 2 – The Media Misses the Boat

Calling President Trump a narcissistic bully means little if we don’t understand how to apply the terms to our analysis of Trump’s behavior. The media keeps falling down in this area, although it may in part be because they are also the bully’s victims here.  Hence, part 2 of my series talking about Trump as a narcissistic bully at Torchlight Media:

 

The Schoolyard Bully Pulpit – Part 2: The Media Misses the Boat

 

Please take a look.  In understanding how the media is not properly applying the narcissistic bully analytical model to Trump’s behavior, we better understand the model ourselves.

Breaking Down Barr, Bee, and the Arts of Intolerant Bullies Part 2: The Barr Background

Previously I dove deep into the Samantha Bee part of recent political and media hand-wringing.  Now let’s go back to the earlier part. Roseanne Barr.

 

Like with Samantha Bee, I’ll start with a summary of what has gone down. For some of you, this may be tedious, but I find it helps to put things all in one place. And also, someone looking at this blog in the future will be able to understand the full context.

 

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Breaking Down Barr, Bee, and the Arts of Intolerant Bullies Part 1: Look at Bee and Define Your Standards

Here we are again. This blog started with the new NFL anthem policy.

 

Then Roseanne Barr dropped her Tweet bombs.  It helped me finally manage to wrap my head around some concepts that had been floating around for a while.  So, I set the anthem policy comments aside for a later date to make observations about the Barr situation instead. Oh well. Best laid plans and all that.

 

Then, Samantha Bee got thrown in the mix as well. What I planned to write changed yet again.

 

And grew to a four part blog.

 

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Everyday Critical Thought Exercises: Qatar and Meme Propaganda

Based on recent reporting on Qatar, I thought I’d offer some basic advice on handling memes we encounter.  Hint: today let’s add exercising caution into our daily routines.

 

From time to time, I’d like to start posting a few shorter articles on thinking more critically based the kinds of things we encounter in our everyday. Like memes, advertisements, headlines, and so on.

 

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How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Accept the Media (Sort Of): Finding Value Despite the Flaws

The media has faults, but having flaws does not make something valueless. Imperfections do not require casting something aside. If they did, we’d all be in trouble. Because none of us are perfect.

 

Welcome to the second part of my two-part blog on the media. In part 1, I made the case for the media always having been faulty.  Its flaws of today do not differ much from those of the past.

 

Which naturally raises some important questions.  If it has always been so bad, then what good is the media? And how do we deal with the bad?

 

In what follows I am going to dig into the ways media helps us.  I will also point out various safeguards the public has against the media’s flaws. Here’s a hint.  The biggest safeguards are ourselves and how we choose to handle the information we take in.  I’ll even give out some tips in that regard.

 

Let’s dive in, shall we?

 

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How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Accept the Media (Sort Of): Flawed the Same as It Ever Was

Notice I did not say “Love the Media.”

 

In the face of distrust of and attacks on the “media” and the “press”, I wanted to make a few observations.  It took me a while, so I broke it into two parts. First, I set out to demonstrate that the media has always been flawed. People have always complained about it. Today’s faults don’t differ that much from those of the past.  Second, I set out to demonstrate that, flawed as the media is and has always been, it still has value in our society.  Question it? Sure.  Demand it do better? Sure. But don’t throw it away simply because you suddenly realized it’s an imperfect beast.

 

Also, something is not “fake” or “false” simply because you don’t agree with it.

 

I leave to you to decide whether I succeeded in my goals.

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Wherein I State How I Mean to Continue

 

Over the past few years, I have been encouraged by friends to start blogging.

 

I don’t profess to be the wisest or smartest person. I do not claim to be the only one with the answers. I do not have perfect spelling, punctuation or grammar. (I try but sometimes fall short.)  My use of the Oxford comma comes and goes. (I was originally taught not to use it; now it’s popular. Go figure.)

 

But I would like to share some of my insights into what is happening around us and how to sift through the overwhelming amount of information we get these days.  My aim is to talk about not only what is going on, but what has gone on before and offer ways to think about it all a bit more critically.   Continue reading

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