Remember that Simpson's episode when Homer decides to start an "Internet business" and ends up getting beat-up by Bill Gates and his henchman? Well, it was kind of like that but instead of making money I wanted to enlighten the world with my editorial skills.
In the past, it seemed my writing abilities were so profound they had earned me about nothing. Always unwilling to accept the conclusions of the corporate dominated media, I created The OtterPage in an attempt at what I call personal journalism. From what I knew of the Internet, I realized this new kind of Web based reporting will one day become mainstream and wanted to be among the first to venture into cyber journalism.
I may not be nearly as famous as my nemesis, Matt Drudge, but
I let the readers add some comments, and archive my work so you
can see how wrong I was last year, as well as last week. Just
try getting Drudge to respond personally to your e-mail or attempt
to find one of his previous reports. You are likely to end up
somewhere even more horrifying than the Drudge Report, like one
of William Safire's past articles.
Pure and simple vanity. Believing that I'm even superior to those far richer and with long titles after their names -- forces me to double guess everything. In the process of doing a double take, I sometimes realize a glimmer of the ridiculousness of it all while the rest of the news media is jumping on one prefabricated spin or another.
My vanity allows me to believe that I know more than the average dolt who is much more willing than I to spend his time and money chasing down some form of comfort or another, be it material possessions or a feeling of mental superiority.
I even think that I'm more intelligent than those in higher education and other "experts" because I know that we will all end up either dead or a dribbling old fool. Not that there is anything wrong with being an old fool, mind you. The infirm and elderly often know things that we can never imagine, but they are humbled by the experience of old age.
The average reader, on the other hand, sees himself as younger and sharper. He believes it is he who is actually in control of his environment, while in fact it is the supposedly mentally superior people like him that are under the most delusion and therefore are the most rigorously controlled.
Freedom for the dog is having the liberty to go as far as his chain will allow. We think we are free because our chain is long, letting us live quite comfortably and with relative freedom compared to others who are ruled by tyrants.
Yet, the dirty little secret is that most modern Americans are
being led around by their noses. I know that my chain is being
yanked by those who want my time, treasure or talent. This admission
makes me mentally superior to the academic or successful businessman
who feels that it is he who is actually in control.
The news media need to pound out of their stubborn heads the large piece of self-serving, pompous, commercial nonsense that makes up a good percentage of what they call news.
This is what aggravates me to no end. The rich and famous get excessively too much ink and much of the rest of the attention goes to the media's own self-promotion. Meanwhile the "average" workers and customers are preyed upon or ignored.
Look at all the free publicity the media gives to people like Gill Gates. Why is everyone so concerned that Microsoft be allowed "the freedom to innovate?" Bill Gates already has enough money to build his own media. Journalists should be more concerned with the software customer's right to a trouble-free product.
Stop the endless "stay tuned for the complete story at six o'clock"
teaser nonsense. If the story is good, it will stand on its own.
You don't need to build excitement. News programs should not be
made like a cheap novel. Just give us the facts, we will add the
themes and subplots ourselves. That is what readers do, journalists
should just tell the story. Leave the opinions to the readers
and smarty-pants, know-it-all pundits like me.
People in food service are very practical compared to employees in the news media who will often try to dress up a lighter-fare news story as something substantial. Often, the customer really wants something much heartier. Constantly serving a light, fluffy dessert like the Lewinsky matter as the main course leaves many news-watchers looking for something more complex to chew on, like HMOs.
The media treats its customers as idiots who will not know the difference. If a food-service business received as many complaints about the food or service as the media seems to receive about it's news coverage, it would go broke in a heartbeat.
In the mainstream news media, it seems that such complaints about the news fare are sometimes treated as a badge of honor, but they are most often ignored by the media top brass.
Unless you are a corporate or political leader, in which case
your "Letter to the Editor" is published at the top of the column.
They seem to begrudgingly accept the time I spend on the Internet. I think that on one hand they must think I'm wasting my time, but on the other hand, they are afraid to say so because they have the vague suspicion that The OtterPage might actually become successful one day.
My wife is happy that being chained to a computer seems to keeps
me out of trouble. The children are amused that, judging by the
e-mail I receive, many of my readers are other kids who are also
looking for help with their homework.
Of course not. Not any more than "Miami Vice" represented real life in Florida.
I like "Homicide: and Baltimore. But in real life, Baltimore is populated by the same mixture of fools, crooks and truly thoughtful people as any modern American city. Some places in the city are wonderful, others are downright dangerous.
But don't get me wrong, I do not subscribe to the theory that
society is crumbling. We have always been as uncivilized as we
are now; modern man is just a lot more open about his brutal nature.
We have shows like "Homicide" to romanticize and document our
obsession with the macabre. In the past someone like Edgar Allan
Poe, who tried to do the same, would die of neglect.
The fact that Baltimore has lost about 40 percent of its population in the last 20 years (including my family.) Although the tide seems to be turning, the Baltimore neighborhoods that Levinson likes to crow on about, are nothing like the nostalgic, sugarcoated recollections in his movies.
I'd like to see Levinson make a movie about some of the guys I
grew up with in the Seventies. They may not be as smart as the
guys Levinson knew, but they sure were allot more interesting
and colorful. The only problem is many of them are dead or in
a mental ward. There is no room for nice, tidy Hollywood endings
in those stories.
Copyright 1998, Thomas L. Mangan
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