News?
The San Francisco Chronicle is the closest thing San Francisco seems to have to a newspaper of record, and some of its reporting is pretty fine. Some of it, however, seems to fall barely into the category of news at all. And it’s making me feel conflicted about what’s the closest thing to a reasonable local news source I’ve got.
Take today for example, and the occasion of Emirates airline starting direct services from San Francisco to Dubai. Now, I know Emirates, and I know Dubai, and both of them are pretty much what you’d expect - havens of tolerance and liberalism, with a healthy respect for the rights of women, lesbians and gays, and people who don’t have obscene amounts of money.
No, but seriously, not only is the fact that Emirates has employment policies which are at odds with those laid out by the city authorities regarded as ‘news’ and worthy of column inches, it’s also deemed worthy of more than 200 comments (by 10.30am) by the readers of the online paper who are alternately screaming about the disgrace of the city doing business with these people and the disgrace of those people’s objections.
I know it’s the same with all news sites these days - I’m not blind to the fact that the BBC News site has pretty much gone to hell in a handcart since all of this ‘have your say’ nonsense took the place of informed analysis and comment - but this just feels like making noise as a replacement for actual reportage, and in a way specifically designed to stir up the audience (on both sides).
December 15th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Are you listening Gordon Brown? No, I thought not.
Sorry the mention of BBC have your say always makes me type those words.
December 22nd, 2008 at 12:23 am
I take it you’ve seen http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/page/2/, a collection of some of the best Have Your Say posts from the BBC and elsewhere.