Consuming Journalism - SB Hopper

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Consuming Journalism

A collection of 50 posts

Here comes the rain again

It was a dark, windy, and rainy night. Sounds like we're going to get drenched here in the Pacific Northwest. Stay safe everyone! Let's hope it helps with western wildfires. I thought this was a pretty cool description from the National Weather Service: Given that this is the first atmospheric

Our phones know everything

There's a very interesting article in the New York Times that shows just how much information can be gleaned from phones. The article unfolds against the backdrop of political battles in the Catholic church. Catholic Officials on Edge After Reports of Priests Using GrindrI'm not Catholic or religious. I don't

Consuming Journalism

Everything is about that guy

One gets the sense that CNN is struggling to adjust to life after Trump. CNN took an article about physical security upgrades at the White House and turned it into a Trump and Melania did X petty thing article. According to the article, the Trumps passed on physical security upgrades

Consuming Journalism: Rising numbers...why?

I know I said I was done with Consuming Journalism. I've never claimed to not not be an unreliable narrator (untangle that...and then let me know what it means, because I'm not sure). I am very much interested in how we consume and interpret journalism, and for a while

Consuming Journalism

Consuming Journalism: Parler

(Note: Consuming Journalism is an attempt to look at how information is presented and how we can better approach that information, not necessarily the merits of the underlying arguments or policy prescriptions.) You've probably heard that advice about writing - make it personal. Well, this is personal - I'm confused.

shoulda been a tweet

Shoulda been a tweet: Ackerman as Obi-Wan

Boy have I been wrong about Afghanistan the past 15 years. I thought it was part of the Forever Wars. A war that we happily allowed U.S. elected officials and DOD personnel to lie about. If you haven't read the Washington Post's Afghanistan Papers, you either know we've been

consumingjournalism

Consuming Journalism: The Independent is bad at context or dishonest

I want Trump to lose. I want his campaign to be doing poorly. I don't want journalists to spin context to reassure me that Trump thinks he's losing and that his campaign is doing poorly. If you read (watch) The Independent, you might get the impression that Trump sadly told

Consuming Journalism

Houston, we have a lot of problems

In my previous post I said I wasn't going to talk any more about the election or COVID's influence on the election. It's still the same day. As the owner of this obscure, quiet corner of the internet, I'm exercising my right to a same day waiver. It's good to

Consuming Journalism

Proofreader for hire

Anyone who has posted online has made a typo. My posts have lots of errors and typos. Probably an error in this post. But it's an obscure blog. Fox News, hire a proofreader. Update: They must have a proofreader.

Consuming Journalism

Consuming Journalism: Media literacy

I started writing short Consuming Journalism features on my blog years ago. I'm sure I tried to explain why I started writing it, but I'm not going to go back through the years and through several different blog platforms to find those explanations. (Bloggers, how do you keep track of

Consuming Journalism

Consuming Journalism: What is evidence?

There are still loads of good journalists, but they're stuck in the Death Star's trash compactor. I hope we find some capable droids to free them. Tucker Carlson had Dr. Li-Meng Yan on his show recently. I haven't got cable, so recently is as specific as I can get. It

Consuming Journalism

Madness

I didn't want to do an addendum to the previous post about Jeffrey Goldberg's collection of unnamed sources saying things, but I have to. I promise I will try to keep it short. I recommend not reading it. This is largely for my own dotting of i's and crossing of

Consuming Journalism

Consuming Journalism: Jeffrey Goldberg and the declining credibility of unnamed sources

[Note: I botched this in its original form. I started writing Consuming Journalism features a couple of years ago as an exercise in reading journalism more critically. In the original post, I let my frustration with unnamed sources steal the spotlight. I want Consuming Journalism to be a clinical, dispassionate

Consuming Journalism

Consuming Journalism: Los Angeles sheriff's deputies shoot and kill man

This post is about the preliminary coverage of a fatal shooting of a black man (some articles identify him as Dijon Kizzee) in Los Angeles by L.A. sheriff's deputies. I saw that both the L.A. Times and Fox News covered the shooting, so I decided to compare them.

Consuming Journalism

Consuming Journalism: Trump, SATs, and circular reporting

Did Donald Trump pay someone to take the SAT for him? I don't know, and I'm not any closer to knowing despite the media bolstering the allegation through lazy, shoddy reporting. I don't know if there's a running history of similar allegations. The current batch of references is linked to

Consuming Journalism

Consuming Journalism: Something's wrong at the New York Times

Obviously, I cannot be trusted on my claims to have permanently retired the Consuming Journalism feature. I'd be better off (healthier, happier) if I could stick to that claim. We're back to the kompromat in a bad article by Michael S. Schmidt. (The article is hosted at Yahoo News...I

Shoulda been a tweet: Taibbi on our great divide

Apologies to regular readers, I’m going to repeat myself a bit here. In 2016, I left DC for Seattle, embarking on a flubbed career change. I drove. I’m not a great distance driver. I stopped for a lot of coffee. It seemed like at just about every stop

Use your words

If you’re a linear thinker, you might want to skip this one. You’ve been warned. It wasn’t my best pandemic day. Every time I told myself I should eat I poured another cup of coffee. That worked for Hunter S. Thompson. Not advisable for the rest of

Consuming Journalism: Cops in unmarked vans and Russia

I joined Substack a long time ago in what I hoped would be part of my wildly successful freelance career. I never really figured out what I was doing there, or with my freelance career. Regardless, I had a little series I did that was mainly for fun, and exercise

Shoulda been a tweet: Fermi and Portland

Hi. I hope everyone is well. I loved seeing those overcast skies and a little bit of rain today in Seattle. I remember reading about Fermi’s Paradox a few years ago. It blew my mind. Fermi was a big brain physicist. I guess he and his fellow big brains

Consuming Journalism

Consuming Journalism: Let's call this an addendum, shall we

A casual glance at the news sites shows that most of them have run with a recap of the New York Times article about Russia paying bounties for the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. They’re not caveating the story(ies). Their wording suggests it’s happening or

Charlie Savage Eric Schmitt Michael Schwirtz bounties Afghanistan

Consuming Journalism: Bounty

Every time I try to get out, they drag me back in. I admire the people who maintain a vigilant watch against reckless journalism. Their stamina and dedication are inspiring. I can’t do it. I know that I could spend 30 more years writing blog posts about the folly

Consuming Journalism

When you're wrong you're wrong (but I'm still kind of right)

Time to eat some humble pie. It sounds like Governor Whitmer’s husband did drop her name when trying to get the family boat put in the water ahead of Memorial Day. He claims he was joking. Awful, just awful. I doubted the original article and the claim. I was

Consuming Journalism

Consuming Journalism: Reading and thinking critically, a perfect example

I thought I was out of the Consuming Journalism biz. News organizations with a cable presence are beyond saving. Total garbage that will make you dumber. I’ve checked those sites daily for years out of muscle memory…I’ve gotten dumber with each click. It’s probably too late

Consuming Journalism

Shoulda been a tweet: COVID mysteries (skip this if experiencing coronavirus overload)

I’m sure that the last thing a lot of people want to read about is the coronavirus. This post is mainly a link to an article I found interesting. Maybe I should just chuck these articles into a spreadsheet, but I have a lot of spreadsheets/databases that went