Let me be perfectly clear: The only thing that's different now from 20/50/100/1000 years ago is speed and scale. There have always been mobs, and rumors, and reporters so hungry for the scoop they don't check the source or confirm the facts with anyone. Technology just allows us to be irresponsible jerks quicker.
We need to be better than this. We are not. I have no anwers.
When Luke Russert, who is the child of two famous journalists, can't get it through his head not to do this, I am not hopeful. That used to be the upside of staying in the family business. You were supposed to pick up the craft.
When the political editor of Buzzfeed pretends that he is part of some avant-garde bit of the Internet which is why he posted the (unsubstantiated) Weiner story, I am not hopeful--but I am laughing.
And when CNN can't apologize for being a chief agent in ruining a woman's life--even when she tried to correct them over and over again--well, people, we are kind of screwed.
These are links to longer stories by On the Media or the New York Times, with summaries taken from the first part of the stories.
Sorry about the paywall, kids. As people are too fond of telling us, we are in a New Age of New Media.
This week, the gossip website The Dirty posted screenshots of explicit chats between an anonymous woman and New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner. Even though the legitimacy of the screenshots could not be confirmed, other news outlets ran the information, and within hours Buzzfeed had identified and named the woman in the chats. Brooke talks to McKay Coppins, Buzzfeed's political editor, about reporting, transparency, and veracity.
On an overcast day in early May, I traveled to suburban Philadelphia to visit the family of Sunil Tripathi, the deceased 22-year-old Brown University student who, for about four hours on the morning of April 19, was mistakenly identified as Suspect No. 2 in the Boston Marathon bombings. The Tripathis had just arrived home after nearly two months spent in Providence, R.I., where they went to organize the search for Sunil, who disappeared on March 16. When I entered the house, Judy Tripathi, Sunil’s mother, asked me for a hug. In a shattered voice, she said, “I need hugs these days.” We sat at the kitchen table and talked, and at one point Judy handed me a photo of a young, smiling Sunil, caught in the motion of throwing a ball. “Look how happy he looks,” she said. For the next two hours, she and her husband, Akhil, and their daughter, Sangeeta, described what happened to them in the early-morning hours of April 19, and how the false identification of their son derailed their ongoing search for him and further traumatized their lives.
In the summer of 2009, Neda Agha-Soltan became the face of the Iranian Green Revolution after her tragic death by gunshot was caught on cell phone camera and uploaded online for the whole world to see. The international media rushed to put a face to the victim--but the face they used was that of another Iranian woman by the name of Neda Soltani, who was still very much alive. Brooke speaks to Neda Soltani, author of
This morning: I'm crossing the street in Hoboken, at rush hour. Lady in a car, with her cell phone to her ear, makes a wide left turn without signaling, nearly hits me. I shout: "Turn signal." She shouts: "Shut up." Awesome! You're breaking two laws at the SAME time, and you're yelling at me!
I didn't happen to be walking Faith at the time, but I usually am when these things happen. So far, my dog and I have made it across the road without getting killed. But eventually, somebody in this town, maybe somebody with a dog, or a baby, or a dog and a baby, or somebody old, or somebody with a hearing or vision impairment, is going to be mowed down by one of these chatty, non-signaling morons. And I hope the driver gets exactly what he or she deserves. I hope an angry mob yanks the offending driver out of the car, then rips the cell phone out of the driver's hand and beats him senseless with it.
Lady with a cell phone, I know you think you're a good driver. But you're not. As the young kids say, you suck. And I"m not alone in my assessment. According to brain specialist Dr. John Medina, you're driving drunk.
Listen here:
I actually have a solution to this problem, which will actually kill two lawbreaking birds in our financially challenged Hoboken with one stone, but it will have to wait until tomorrow.
Perhaps you check your stats and referrers the way I do...at least once a day, sometimes, well, more. Over and over, I noticed that the one entry that gets hit over and over. It's called "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," and it's one of my broodier ones on how feminism is NOT one size fits all. Why did people keep going to it? I mean, it's...broody. And feminist.
And then I realized I had included the magic words, the miracle phrase that probably ranks right up there with Miley (Legally Changed Her Name, But Didn't Understand About That Topless Thing) Cyrus.
When you are explaining to me what Soho used to be like, before it became a dizzying, awful, yet sometimes pleasant! mall, please do not tell me that Keith "Harring" used to live there, or I will crush your skull with a Radiant Baby.
Keith Haring would be 50 this year. We should throw a party in an abandoned subway station.
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