Tsunami Tuesday
Feb 5th, 2008 by Mark
A couple hours away for me, however I just wanted to use the term so I could piss off Sree Sreenivansan.
This clown (a prof at Columbia, what a shocker) says that Tsunami Tuesday is insensitive to the survivors of the Tsunamis of 2004. Obviously other Tsumami survivors are SOL with Mr. Sreenivansan. Arrogant jackass. I am still waiting for his rail against those who characterize Christianity equal to Terrorism. Yea don’t hold your breath.
Having had a chance to, literally, sleep on it, I think I am not being too PC about this (a little PC, yes, but not too PC). I awoke to several e-mail messages, all in support of my questioning this wording. I’ll let my friend Paul Knox sum up those messages:
No, you aren’t being too PC. The usage is incredibly insensitive. It has been upsetting me for a couple of weeks now, everytime I hear it. Would we call Giuliani’s drop in the polls his “Ground Zero Plummet?” I could go on, but I won’t.
[A friend at lunch pointed out we'd never say, "Rudy's campaign fell like the twin towers."]
So now it’s ok to compare a natural event with man made evil, and they are equivalent.
UN. REAL.
In more news of the stupid: on Poynter they are decrying the bias against journalism. No, really they are. Oh and it’s our fault that the world will collapse since we don’t trust the media. No, really they said that.
The public bias against the press is a more serious problem for American democracy than the bias (real or perceived) of the press itself.
Funny how the bias against the press is assumed, but the bias of the media is “real or perceived”. Oh yeah, can’t tell where this article is going, can we?
In short, I protest the idea that the perception of bias is, as expressed in the Sacred Heart poll, evidence of bias in the work itself. It is possible — I would say in this case probable — that the perception is a creation of forces over which journalists have little influence or control.
It’s not your fault journalists; it’s those puritanical idiots who are your customers that have no clue. This just points out the problem with the media. They are clueless about the real world.
Even more Poynter stupidity. They are wondering if they should declare their party affiliation. As if we don’t know already.
Tags: tsunami tuesday, super duper tuesday, super tuesday, Sree Sreenivasan, hillary, obama, clinton, romney, huckabee, mccain
Sree is a one-time Poynterbot, just to provide some perspective.
This kind of thing is what you get from today’s pseudojournalists. They try to play these little gotcha games. The PC police come up with some new “offensive” term, and then they try to catch people. It’s really weak and really tiresome.
You won’t get much in the way of solutions from the Poynterbots. The group has one goal: to convince people to pay for its overpriced, worthless seminars. They know many newsrooms won’t implement any of the changes, but they keep the charade going. By doing this, Poynter has been complicit in the “groupthink” attitude that has bled ideas and individuality from the newsrooms.
Nelson Poynter has to be spinning in his grave right now.
*lol* Mr Sree has linked back to me. What up Sree?
http://www.sajaforum.org/2008/02/prez-race-tsuna.html
I do like how he quotes himself. I need to start doing that.
I saw that, too. Humorous.
You know what else is funny? Sree was complaining about the “offensive” use of the word tsunami while papers were churning out the following:
http://www.wenalway.com/forum/index.php?topic=9.255
In my comment on Poynter I intimated that maybe it was racially or religiously motivated.
[...] Mr. Sree Sreenivansan is all bent out of shape over a the word Tsunami being used to describe the vo…. He doesn’t seem to be upset about actual issues, substantive issues. For instance; yesterday the media (taka MSM, drive-by media, liberal media, gate keepers) said that Rush Laughlin was now endorsing Huckabee. [...]