Neighborhood News?

The creator of backfence.com tried to convince a room full of aspiring journalists that random bloggers from your neighborhood are just as credible as Washington Post staffers with weekly bylines.

I know I'm supposed to represent the generation of onliners, but even I have a hard time swallowing his message.

Backfence.com and others like it, are sites where neighborhood folk and average joes can inform the public about what's happening in town. Discussions about zoning and preschool lotteries need a venue to be communicated. However, Mr. Post was trying to sell a bunch George Mason University journalism students that they've wasted time and money trying to learn about the field of reporting and writing the news.

My outrage about his message is a bit ironic since I am expressing my disagreement with it via blog. I don't disagree that members of a given community are able to be informed about what goes on there, but I am a homeowner and I know that sometimes my personal frustrations about my community can skew the way I tell a story about my community.

Mr. Potts tried to convince us that the Wikipedia's of the web are cedible sources for information. If that is so true, how come professors refuse to accept Wikipedia as a citable source on papers?

I think it's a good starting point, but I never check out Wikipedia without following up my research on another site.

I would follow this same step if I used backfence.

It is the media consumers responsibility to question what they take in and investigate, but I don't want to spend so much time following up on what Mr.Johnson wrote about when I can go straight to fairfaxcounty.gov in the first place.

I apologize

Each week a new slew of politically incorrect politicians, ball players and washed up sitcom stars beg the public for forgiveness.

What does this trend really mean?

This weeks public offender is an NBA player. I don't hold these guys to high standards to begin with, but I understand that they represent the NBA once they accept the large contract and their own line of sneakers.

My problem is not with the bigot who made the intolerant comments about gay men, I find fault with the forced apology. It's almost as if you mutter two magic words and suddenly the public must welcome the verbal assailant back into the world of civility.

If you are racist, sexist, homophobic or part of any other exclusionary groups, do not back down from the insensitive comments that you are caught making in public.

I don't care how funny Kramer was, that was not Michael Richards first time saying the N word. It was the first time he got caught.

I'm not a fan of his behavior, but I find his apology and healing time with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton a bit repugnant. And a lot staged.

What does an apology mean if those who were offended or hurt have to scream for one?

I Want My MSNBC

An astronaut armed with mace and one dead buxom blonde have hogged the airwaves.

No, they weren't advertising for a bad B list film. These were the two stories that occupied hours of airtime on MSNBC, CNN and the fair and balanced FOX news network all last week.

I guess this boils my brain because it has become almost impossible to get real news without having to suffer through 15 minute celebrity segements. If it isn't TomKat or Brangelina its some celebrity bimbo's wardrobe malfunction.

Where is the news?

I remember a time when 6pm was the official time for news. Every major network designated at least an hour to current events.

Jim Vance actually talked about the Gulf War, not what Britney wore.

I'm not sure if the media is catering to what the public really wants or if the media is just trying to make most of us believe celebrity smut and bizarre behavior is what we should be watching.

We are at war. Even though 24 hour news stations have plenty of time to inform us, so much airtime is wasted on frivilous Hollywood happenings and scandalous stories about suburbanites.

The death of Anna Nicole Smith was tragic and worth mentioning. However, hours of her semi-disturbing sex pot photos accompanied by speculative commentary was not news. It was gossip. The only good thing about the Anna exposure, was that it finally knocked that crazed astronaut's story off the media's most talked about list.

I don't mind a little mindless entertainment, but we can please separate it from the informative stuff we used to call news? The E network was established as an alternative to MSNBC not direct competition with news channels.