New York Daily News Loves to Gossip

Headline:Fired Queens teacher's 19-year-old pretty boy turns ugly on cameraman
The story begins like this...

"The hot-headed teen hunk who romanced a teacher nearly twice his age may love cameras on the catwalk, just not on the sidewalk.

Runway Romeo Joshua Walter - whose steamy affair with a Queens teacher led to her being fired - had multiple foul-mouthed meltdowns Tuesday as he shoved a TV reporter and tried to smash a camera."

Understandably, The New York Daily News is NOT the most reliable source for news. With a reputation for tabloid-y stories, the Daily News walks the fine line between respectable news coverage and gossip tall tales.

In this particular story (of an underage minor and a New York State teacher) the reporters tend to exaggerate the importance of certain details. For instance, "Salamino was 34 and a second-grade teacher at PS 121 when she started sleeping with the 17-year-old Walter, who did not attend a single class at Bryant High School in the 2006-07 school year because he was catwalking all over the world."

Certainly if this story was covered by the Associated Press the term "modeling" would substitute "catwalking all over the world" while "sleeping with"would be replaced by "intimate relationship."

Another instance where the choice of vocabulary makes me doubt the legitimacy and actual training of the reporters is the following sentence, "Now 37, Salamino was canned last summer after being found guilty..."

Since when does the word "canned" replace "fired" in a news story. Not once have heard the term "canned" used in a news setting and I was surprised to read it in the New York Daily News.

If this story had been published on "Page Six" or even in the Op/Ed section, I would not be analyzing it's validity. However, the story was placed under the "News" portion of the website.

Finally, at the bottom of the news story "journalists" Martinez and Yaniv included this sentence, "The United Federation of Teachers and the Department of Education declined to comment on the pending case."

This last sentence bothers me most of all. Instead of including at least one credible source in the beginning of the story, the journalists covering this story placed the Department of Education last. In the pyramid of importance in news coverage, the authors of this story placed the Department of Education at the bottom. Regardless of whether this source chose to comment or not, the fact of the matter is the reporters deemed the Department of Education unimportant.


ORIGINAL ARTICLE WRITTEN BY OREN YANIV AND JOSE MARTINEZ DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS PUBLISHED ON Tuesday, November 25th 2008, 9:58 PM

Microsoft Blews: Software program to rate political media bias

This is not the typical Unbiased Tabloid blog post. It doesn't analyze any media messages nor does it expose any bias. Instead, it serves to inform you of an innovative news aggregator that identifies the political orientation (or bias) of news articles.

Microsoft Blews is a software program in development that uses political blogs to categorize news stories as either conservative or liberal. These categorizations are based on the number of "right" or "left" blog links to a story. Blews also determines the "emotional charge" present in the blogospheres' discussion of the news topic.

"BLEWS achieves this goal by digesting and analyzing a real-time feed of political-blog posts, " says Microsoft.

This feed is provided by the Live Labs Social Media platform.

In addition to identifying the "political orientation" of news stories, Blews strives to create a more balanced view, with “see the view from the other side” functionality. This enables a reader to compare different views on the same story from different sides of the political spectrum.


Blews could be highly useful in informing political perspectives. It could be the first in a number of increasingly advanced aggregators with the ability to determine the ideological basis of news stories, and sort them on that basis. Or it could flop. What do you think?

Fox News still bias toward Obama, but to a lesser degree

Obama's Cabinet Picks Heavy on Washington Experience

Perusing this week's news articles from various media outlets, I noticed something particularly interesting, yet unsurprising; Fox News has practically ceased criticizing now President-elect Barack Obama. Key word: practically.

Despite clear indications that the network's avoided its usual agenda-setting (because of Obama's overwhelming victory), bias is still evident. Take the lead of the article Obama's Cabinet Picks Heavy on Washington Experience for example:

"For months on the campaign trail, Barack Obama promised to bring change to Washington. But now that he's president-elect, his first potential Cabinet picks indicate that he may bring more years of Washington experience to his administration than Bill Clinton or George W. Bush did."

Obama promised change. He didn't promise inexperienced Cabinet members. Suggesting that picking experienced Cabinet members is somehow contradictory to a policy of change is either stupid or biased. Something tells me it's the latter.

Who the experienced individuals are is the subject of interest, or at least it should be. Obama picking individuals who served or held views consistent with the Bush Administration would be cause for criticism. But this is not the case.

In fact, he seems to be keen on veterans of the Clinton Administration, naming Rahm Emanuel as his White House Chief of Staff. Emanuel was a leading strategist in the efforts to institute universal health care during Clinton's presidency.

To be fair, the lead is the only blatant bias in the article. Fox did include several quotes from Russell Riley, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs. These include the following:

"[Clinton administration veterans] participated in a presidency that is viewed to have its accomplishments and was viewed as well run."

"The argument that Obama people would make ... it's possible to rely on people who know how the levers are pulled, but move it in a different direction than the last eight years."

First "Barack the Vote", now a movie

(Click headline for link to article)

OK, it is now post-election time and we can congratulate President-elect Barack Obama for really "Baracking the vote!" I am sure we can also come to a consensus that the 2008 election was quite eventful, full of surprises, and of course, dramatic as ever. During the election we saw SNL, MAD-TV and many other satirical productions of the events that led up to the final vote. Even after the election, some people just can't let go of the comedic drama. ABC News broke out a recent story about an inevitable movie for the 2008 election.

This article is not bias based on the dictionary definition of the term, but it definitely offers a slanted approach centered on the election being more humorous and amusing than fundamental. This whole idea of making a new movie, "Election 2008: The Movie" seems a bit too far fetched. Granted I found myself laughing while reading the article, I realized how inpractical it was with the point it made. Not only does it offer a fabricated illustration of the recent elections, but it mirrors more parodies that were already revealed on Late Night shows as previously mentioned.

I found the cinemark idea to offer a more satirical idea of the realistic events and would actually take away from the seriousness of the election. Moreover, the movie would display a mockery and ridicule of the candidates involved, such as Senator John McCain, whom the critics mention Ed Harris as a prospective actor for this part and regarding Harris' intended role, say: "I'm sure he can be made to look older."
Most notably of course, they discussed the proposal of Tina Fey playing Governor Sarah Palin, which is no surprise since that was a main focal point of mainstream media during the election.

As for the other participants, it was interesting to read the bogus suggestions for the cast characters such as Barack Obama (Will Smith), Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Cindy McCain, Oprah (by Oprah), Joe Biden, George Bush and we couldn't forget the infamous "Joe the Plumber."

Although I agree that this past election was much different than any others and encompassed many extremes thus making it quite amusing, I would not advocate it as a blockbuster comedy because of its intense distortion of reality.

Suburban singles SOL?

Are suburban singles destined to be alone? Does it mean that since they do not live in a hip, bustling city, they are completely out of the loop when it comes to finding a "mate?" According to this article entitled The Best Cities For Singles on www.forbes.com, the answer would be a resounding "Yes!" 

"For the first time ever, Atlanta tops our list of the best cities for singles. The capital of Georgia and home of Coca-Cola earns the top slot because of its hopping nightlife, relatively high number of singles and sizzling job growth."

By the sounds of this, perhaps Atlanta is the best city for anyone and everyone. 

What really bothered me about this article was the methodology of "coolness," meaning rating the coolness factor of each individual city and comparing them against each other. The fact that "coolness" was an actual method of measurement made me think of junior high cliques and "No Boys Allowed" clubs. 

Though, I'm sure this article was written for a rather young audience, probably aimed at women, it is biased in the way of pertaining to a select social group. After all, how many single, lonely 60-year-olds are going to be searching for a "mate" based on a spicy nightlife or the coolest city?

Overall, this article was an interesting read, but lacking and relatively pointless if you are looking to get anything substantial out of it. 

A Circuit Break

Headline: Why Circuit City Busted, While Best Buy Boomed

It's one thing to report on a major company's financial blunders and giving explanation to why this may have occurred, but it is completely different when the reasons for the fall of a business are not supported by substantial evidence. A reporter's job is to reduntantly use the phrase "he/she said" after any statement that relfects a decision or action not already universally known. Throughout this article about Circuit City's bankruptcy, the writer refers to the issue as results of lack of management or poor customer service; however, she does not cite any sources to back up her arguement. In fact her only two sourcces do not even reflect on any of the issues she raises in the article about why Circuit City busted.

For instance her first reference, David Schick, merely says that business was great at one time but never adapted, and stops there. From that simple statement, the writer drew inferences and exaggerated the claims against the company. Since that was her only quote and source until the end of the story, one could only infer that she based her conclusions on his interview. How does she know about the real-estate issue which she approaches mid-story, or the Web presence neglegence? I did not see any mention of an interview with professionals or even consumers from either of those fields. She does the same thing with Helen Bulwik's inventory statement.

The subject that caught me most off guard was her idea of its customer service resulting most in their failing, according to the reporter anyway. Again, there is no attribution to this statement; her basis is the fact that they laid off higher paid employees to bring in cheaper labor. Couldn't this be a result of the poor economy and not automatically mean poor service? Maybe she could have used a customer's perspective here. Plus, if you search for a particular company's complaints and put just that into a search engine, of course it will come up with thousands of results. I am sure this would also happen with Best Buy, which the writer positively mentions throughout the story.

I can't say I disagree with some of her arguements, but I would not insinuate my opinions in a news story. She could have even focused more on the economic downfall of our nation as a reason for their bankruptcy insted of just saying "it played no small role." I don't know if maybe this reporter had a negative experience at a Circuit City store or what, but even if so, it should in now way reflect in her article.

What do you think??

Love expert got game?

While flipping through the channels Sunday afternoon, I came across a show I had never heard of before, called "The Pick-Up Artist" on VH1, so I decided to tune in. Granted, I don't watch much TV anymore, since I am taking three film classes this semester, my DVD player has been getting all the attention, so I'm sure I have been one of the only people in the dark about this show. This article on vh1.com provides more information, including a summary and links about the series. For those not familiar, the premise of the show is based on transforming eight "socially awkward nerds" into the "Master Pick-Up Artist." The host, Mystery ("former nerd turned best-selling author and ultimate pick-up artist") and his crew teach the guys a lesson about how to talk to/appeal to women and then send them off on little adventures to a bar or other social arenas to try out their new skills, or lack there of. Based on each guy's performance, there are elimination rounds and those who aren't making progress are told "Game over." 

I know I have grossly overanalyzed this series, but there is bias in that the contestants are relying on the teachings and opinions of only one man, Mystery, in order to learn the "language of love."

Secondly, the show is clearly stereotyping poor nerds all over the world, though funny, it is up to everyone's personal judgment to decide what is considered "nerdy" and "awkward" and what is charming and attractive. 

Lastly, the only females who show any kind of authority in the show, share their knowledge of lovemaking and the right things to do to grab and keep a woman's interest. Yet, they do all of this wearing only bras and panties or some kind of racy lingerie. Are we supposed to actually take them seriously? 

Seems like an entertaining show, full of embarrassing moments, girls wearing next to nothing, and plenty of bragging rights for Mystery, but what about the messages the content of the show can send? What happens when this kind of bias content begins to make impressions on viewers' minds, most notably teens? 

What kind of messages about the opposite sex will be impressed on young teenage boys' minds when they see a woman dressed in lingerie sitting in a "pillow room" waiting for each of the "masters in training" to come into the dark room to turn her on? 

On the other hand, most teenage girls are already extremely self-conscious about their bodies and craving attention from boys. What will they think when they see these men slobbering all over half-dressed women, who just happen to be sex analysts? 

Overall, great show for adults if you are in the mood to watch something with seemingly no intellectual depth and lots of laugh-out-loud moments of male humiliation.