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The Roundup: Darfur, Housing and Britney
Darfur, the housing crisis - and hey, what's this? - Britney Spears are the big topics being bandied about in PBS's corner of cyberspace this week. Users are responding to "Heart of Darfur," this week's "Wide Angle" film on the humanitarian crisis that appears to be intensifying.
On a "Wide Angle" discussion board, Lesley writes, "[It] makes me sick to think that people act this way. I didn't know anything about Darfur until now. I feel terrible sitting at home and knowing and not doing anything." Another user, Sam, thinks more should be done. He writes, "Why don't we get more information in the media about the weapon supply? Why no journalist seems to ask the question? Why didn't any media outlet, including this once very respectable PBS ask the question of how much weapons do these twenty some militias poses?" User are also responding to last week's "Now" report on the housing crisis.
Bryan writes, "NO Bail out for people that bought houses they could not afford to begin with. I'm tired of hearing sob stories. ... A responsible person buying a house would have a down payment and a year of savings in the bank to back them up. Wake up people!!!! NO BAIL OUT FOR STUPID PEOPLE!!!!!" Whoa dude, calm down. And let's take it easy with the exclamation points.
Over at YouTube's PBS Channel, StephanAOTTO1 weighed in on a "Bill Moyers Journal" report on workplace safety with this pithy remark: "When the people demand representation, they will get it. Just back away from the Smoothies, Britney & Wal-Mart for a second, and, we might actually accomplish something for our workforce." Ha, we thought. How often do you see "PBS" and "Britney Spears" in the same sentence?
Then we came across Darren Gersh's essay on the future of business journalism over at XChange, the "Nightly Business Report" blog. It seems Darren just returned from a seminar where he learned "if you put Britney Spears in your story, you are likely to get lots of hits from people searching for news on Britney Spears. The more you talk about Britney Spears in that story, the higher it will appear in a search engine when someone enters 'Britney Spears.'" Holy cow! Why didn't someone tell us this earlier? Britney, Britney, Britney! (Now let's watch this blog zoom to the top of the charts.) What do you think? Are the media doing a good job educating the public about the crisis in Darfur? Is the press giving us too many sob stories about who got stuck with bad mortgages? Is Britney the future of business journalism?
Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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Thank constraint article says. Opinions about this article that read my writing when I see fit....
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Barak Obama
If Senator Obama continues to move to the middle on issues, won't he run the risk of alienating the progressive left, the very constituency that made his candidacy possible? This would be very dire because the left is energetic, vocal, and mobilized, whereas the middle is quiet, fickle, and may or may not vote in the election. A better strategy is to bring the middle to the left, because people are ready for a change in that direction. If the Obama positions become muddled, the left will become disenchanted and the middle will become more apathetic than they already are. The dream of real change in Washington will go into the history books!