By spocko, on December 16th, 2011 Irena Briganti, Senior Vice President Media Relations Fox News
Dear Ms. Briganti:
On Monday December 12, 2011, Fox News Network, L.L.C., broadcast a chart entitled Unemployment Rate Under President Obama. The source was listed as the 2011 Bureau of Labor Statistics. Numerous writers have pointed out the visual errors in this chart (link) and called into question whether they were genuine mistakes or intentional efforts to mislead.
Note where 8.6 is at the end of the chart in relation to earlier numbers
I would like to hear your official statement about this chart and its errors; and how it came to be created and broadcast. I would also like to know if there will be any consequences for the people who created and aired this chart.
Toward that end, I would direct your attention to an internal memo Fox News Corporation (FNC) management sent to its newsroom staff in November 2009 (emphasis is mine):
Effective immediately, there is zero tolerance for on-screen errors. Mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the “mistake chain,” and those who supervise them. That may include . . . → Read More: Dear Irena Briganti: Anyone Ever Fired for On-screen Errors at Fox?
By spocko, on December 11th, 2011
Turn on captions for more Community lyrics goodness. Mistletoe for eat-y taste good?
I love Community. And as with all the programs I love, it is being canceled.
Well, we’ll always have Cwistmas.
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By spocko, on November 4th, 2011 I’ve been writing lately about how to deal with the vandals at the #occupy movement in my piece yesterday at Firedoglake, Time to Identify the Occupy Vandals. Today my friend Sara Robinson wrote an excellent piece on dealing with people with over-the-top behavior. I think this will be useful context for thinking about dealing with outliers.
By, Sara Robinson, Senior Fellow, Campaign for America’s Future
November 4, 2011
I wish I could say that the problems that the Occupy movement is having with infiltrators and agitators are new. But they’re not. In fact, they’re problems that the Old Hippies who survived the 60s and 70s remember acutely, and with considerable pain.
As a veteran of those days — with the scars to prove it — watching the OWS organizers struggle with drummers, druggies, sexual harassers, racists, and anarchists brings me back to a few lessons we had to learn the hard way back in the day, always after putting up with way too much over-the-top behavior from people we didn’t think we were allowed to say “no” to. It’s heartening to watch the Occupiers begin to work out solutions to what I can only indelicately call “the asshole problem.” In the . . . → Read More: Occupy’s Asshole Problem: Flashbacks from An Old Hippie
By spocko, on October 22nd, 2011 If it bleeds it leads.
- Old TV news saying
Say this weekend you turn on the TV and there is a teaser headline. “Occupy Wall Street Protests Turn Violent!“ You tune in to hear the details. An anchorman says something like, “As with the protests in Greece and Egypt, it was only a matter of time before the protests in America turned violent. Today Occupy Wall Street protesters began throwing rocks and bottles at police. ”
Now what do you do?
Do you drop to your knees, like Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes and scream at the TV? “You Maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you!”
Do you cynically shake your head and think, “That’s it, the movement has been discredited with violence just like back in the old days. Now the police will have an excuse to shut down all the Occupy protests with this as an excuse.”
I’m going to suggest another approach when you hear of reports of violence at an Occupy Wall Street protests.
Photo by DavidyDave, Flickr Creative Commons
1) Challenge the assumption that the violent protester(s) are actually Occupy Wall Street protesters.
The media . . . → Read More: What To Do When The Media Says a Protester Attacked A Cop
By spocko, on October 18th, 2011
The website occupytheboardroom.org was put together to give us 99% an opportunity to talk with the 1%. It lets you pick a “penpal” you can write to and tell your story. People can pick from dozens of top executives at Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley
The stories will be sent to the actual email accounts of the executives as well as delivered by mail. You can read some of the funny, heartbreaking and passionate letters already written at the Occupy The Board Room Mail Bag.
The site encourages you to write your letter in a constructive manner that helps build the movement for a better world. From the site: “DO NOT intimidate, harass or threaten anyone, no matter what you might think of them. Think funny! The #OWS movement emphasizes peaceful, non-violent protesting.”
I think this is a great idea for people who can’t get down to the various OWS sites to participate. I’m always trying to think about what kind of actions are necessary to either change the configuration of someone’s thinking or to change people’s behavior.
This website is designed to reach the 1% but there are other . . . → Read More: Tell the 1% what You Think at Occupy The Board Room
By spocko, on October 16th, 2011
Apparently the simple act of closing your account at a CitiBank can get you arrested. Watch as this nice woman in the business suit is manhandled and hauled away as she and some friends decided to close their CitiBank accounts at the same time.
My friends at New York Communities for Change have been behind a lot of actions like this. I don’t know if they are behind this one, but they have been convincing villages, towns and cities to remove their funds from Chase because of their poor response to the mortgage crisis.
I’m surprised CitiBank doesn’t just charge them a 50 dollar, “Closing your account fee.”
“Hello this is CitiBank, your business is important to us. If you would like to close your account press one and you will be transferred to our Account Closure specialist Helen Wate. At CitiBank when you talk, we listen and when you want to close your account you can go to Helen Wate.”
Personally I keep all my quatloos in a box under my bed. BTW, the quatloo is pegged to the Loonie, the world’s most elegant currency.
UPDATE 8:30 PM From the Guardian in the UK Earlier, 24 . . . → Read More: Closing Your CitiBank Account Can Get You Arrested
By spocko, on October 11th, 2011 It’s no secret that this old Vulcan is a fan of Elizabeth Warren. This is the video that she should have used to introduce herself and her run for Senate in Massachusetts.
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By spocko, on October 6th, 2011 “Remember, the guy who suggests getting the dynamite is usually the Fed.”
- Old hippie saying
Yesterday morning a retired military officer friend (RMOF) and I were conversing about what might happen next with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Since Michael Westen of Burn Notice or Annie Walker from Covert Affairs weren’t available, he offered some thoughts from the point of view of a non-fictional character who studies this stuff. I, as a media watcher and activist wanted to talk about how the media and power players will deal with the various actions and what we can do to predict the media’s actions so we can get ahead of news and prepare. I also have delusions of influencing the narrative, but I’m afraid that shuttle craft might have left the ship.
Here are a few of his thoughts and some of my questions, predictions and suggestions.
RMOF:
I expect “trouble” soon. I don’t expect it from the protestors, but plants put in by the plutocrats or by violent individuals.
Spocko:
Definitely. The media LOVE plants because they will create the kind of action that makes for good TV. What they are not good . . . → Read More: The Guy who Suggests Getting Dynamite is Usually the Fed. Who will escalate violence at OWS?
By spocko, on September 28th, 2011 I’ve lived in at least four bubbles in the “bubble economy”. The Dot Com Bubble, The Housing Bubble, The Financial Toxic Waste Bubble and The Great Recession Bubble. I’ve observed people living in personal bubbles and I’ve created and popped my own. This last week I got to live in a different personal bubble than my usual Vulcan bubble while observing the impact of the bubble housing on people. It was interesting and it has briefly reconfigured my thinking.
When people talk about the bubble economy or people living in a bubble there is an underlying criticism that bubbles are a bad thing, and they often are. But I totally understand why people want them, create them and love them. Bubbles are GREAT — if they work for you. If there are no sanctions or consequences for the deleterious effects of bubbles when expanding rapidly or after popping, people will continue to create them as fast as they can. If they could, they would get a bubble gun.
All bubbles have winner and losers. Here in the future home of Star Fleet Academy I know some of the Dot Com Bubble winners and losers very well. For everyone who . . . → Read More: Is Your Bubble Filled with Despair, Hope, Anger or Soap?
By spocko, on September 17th, 2011 When Joe Wilson shouted “You lie!” at the State of the Union address he got interviewed. Why not interview at least the two guys who wanted the uninsured to die? CNN and the Tea Party Express obviously know their names, why won’t they release them? Are they afraid of being found out? I think that they would be proud of their shouts. They clearly represent the views of many. Maybe they will end up hosting their own Fox News shows. . . . → Read More: No Brains. No Heart. The Tea Party/CNN debate.
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Spocko's United Reserves Against Killing of Journalists and Liberals
Spocko’s Press Clippings Here's the New York Times story about my efforts to defund violent rhetoric on KSFO. January 15, 2007 by Noam Cohen
Bloggers Take on Talk Radio Hosts
Here is one of the SF Chronicle stories on January 11, 2007. By Joe Garofoli
Trying to censor blogger / Owner of conservative radio station KSFO demands liberal critic quit using audio clips
The tale of Spocko, a self-described "fifth-tier" blogger who lives in San Francisco, exemplifies how one person with a computer and an Internet hookup can challenge the views of a major media corporation -- and what a media corporation will do to stop him.
For the past year, Spocko has been e-mailing advertisers of KSFO-AM with audio clips from its shows and asking sponsors to examine what they're supporting. Some sponsors have pulled their ads, after hearing clips like one of KSFO's Lee Rodgers suggesting that a protester be "stomped to death right there. Just stomp their bleeping guts out."
[snip]
A little over a year ago, he became so annoyed by the "violent" tone of commentary on KSFO-AM that he and some of his readers e-mailed more than three dozen of the station's advertisers.
"I want to emphasize that if you withdraw your ads you aren't limiting their free speech, just removing your paid support of it," Spocko wrote to advertisers.
Join the EFF The Electronic Frontier Foundation provided me free legal representation in the ABC matter. Please consider supporting them!"
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