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Rush Limbaugh has his . . . well, here is mine. This is my record of news stories and issues that interest me. You can also find more headlines at the site where I serve as editor: The Common Voice.

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Caught in a funk

Jay Nordlinger on National Review Online

For the last several days I have been fighting a weight. Prehaps calling it a funk is a little too drastic, but it just sounds right. It seems to have come about due to me taking the time to watch a documentary produced for Channel 4 in England entitled, "Beam Me Up Jesus." An entire segment dealt with a visit of the videographers to my campus. Of course, it was then my job to host them and get them the information they sought.

They were two really nice guys to get to know. They also did the best job of any "journalists" in presenting themselves as seeking the clear view of the story. Unfortunately, they were liars. I mean, I don't say that to be sensational. They were liars. Their whole visit was a charade in order to create a mockumentary - a sacriligious one at that.

Don't think I was entirely naive. I expected it not to be a promotional piece. However, I did not expect it to be so purposefully edited to create their little joke. And people wonder why BJU is hesitant to open to "journalists" - we have good reason.

Then today I pick up the paper and read The Greenville News' Ron Barnett's piece "Religious icon stirs emotions." Here again I see a piece written with the "journalist" using his arrangement of interviews and editing of conversations to make a point - not to inform, but to advance one side of the issue.

Then I read the following on NRO by Jay Nordlinger. At least I don't feel alone:
In The New Yorker, I spotted the snottiest little piece to come down the pike since . . . the last time I read The New Yorker. It is about some West Point cadets, who were taken to the Metropolitan Opera to see Turandot. Civilize 'em, you know - make 'em less beastly, less embarrassing to their fellow Americans who work for or read The New Yorker.

(By the way, when you say "Turandot," go ahead and pronounce the final "t." Many don't, in the mistaken belief that French is in order. Turandot is an Italian opera about a Chinese princess. Pronounce the "t" - if you can stand to be corrected incorrectly. I would bet most of the tea in Turandot's China that the author of this snotty little article pronounces the name incorrectly.)

Let me cite the last line of the article: "Ernest Lee [a cadet], descending to the coat check, declared his intention to develop his newfound taste for Puccini at the first opportunity. 'I want to get the soundtrack,' he said."

Ha, ha, ha - dumb soldier said "soundtrack," as though the opera were a movie. Journalists have extraordinary power, for good or ill. I think about this a lot. By some artful arranging of sentences and so on, you can make anyone - even an Einstein - look stupid. I hope I don't do it (too often).
Well, with all of this in mind, I plan to spend my day with Tony Walker, a reporter with the Australian Financial Review. I can't help but wonder what it real motive might be... I don't like to be cynical... Maybe it is just the funk.

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