Fishermen and pirates and the framing of the issue...

I know from journalism that every story is like a slice of bread: It has two sides. And often an issue has more than just two sides as well. There can be all kinds of sides and complexities. So, it is always interesting to consider how the media or government or business or others can frame an issue. Sometimes information is there, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes sides of an issue are available, sometimes they aren't.

Take, for example, the matter of Somali pirates. For years now, I have heard on the TV news about pirates off the coast of Somalia, tormenting ships and drawing the ire of world-wide navy forces. The term "pirate" itself is certainly a negative term. When I think of a "pirate," I think of "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson and salty peg-legged or hook-handed characters who are mean and violent and like to steal and kidnap. And if a person "spells like a pirate," well, then you know they probably aren't too educated.

Well, I was surprised recently when I checked out the book "Censored 2010, The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2008-09," edited by Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff with Project Censored. The project provides lists and information about news stories that have been reported but tend to be generally overlooked and don't make it into the mainstream media.

Story number three was titled "Toxic Waste Behind Somali Pirates." It noted, "The international community has come out in force to condemn and declare war on the Somali fishermen pirates, while discreetly protecting the illegal, unreported, and unregulated fleets from around the world that have been poaching and dumping toxic waste in Somali waters since the fall of the Somali government 18 years ago."

I don't mean to imply that I am sympathetic to the cause of Somali pirates. I honestly don't know enough about the matter. But now I do have some questions, because of how the issue has been framed by all those who control the picture and the framing.

The descriptive word "fishermen," in contrast to "pirates," is not a negative term. But my main point is that until recently when I saw that article in the book, I had never ever heard anything remotely positive, let alone potentially justifiable, from the Somali side of the issue. Not once, not ever. It just wasn't in the news. It just wasn't part of the news reports. Those who framed the issue within my world of the media and society had framed that detail out.

What's Not For Me--New Media, Technology, and Gadgets...

In considering aspects of new media, technology, and various modern gadgets, I have come to some conclusions and theories about the future of media and electronics, both personally and generally.

Here are some media and technological products that, I am sorry to say, just aren't for me:

• No way can I ever imagine that I would watch a movie on a tiny screen like the screens of cell phones and texting devices. No thanks!
• I also don't watch movies on a computer. You see, when I want to watch something long, like a movie or a documentary, I like to sit on a comfortable couch and watch a screen that's across the room. A VCR is a nice addition, because I can start, stop, and start again when I want to. TV remains the place for my film viewing.
• No, never would I read a book on an electronic screen. For me, a Kindle-type device will never replace the good feeling of opening up a book and reading from paper-page to paper-page. I also prefer library check-out to the Internet for reading a book, although the Internet is a great resource for research and quick information.
• Twittering? Oh, I don't think so. It reminds me of what I didn't like about USA Today, when it was all the rage for the new kind of newspaper: The brevity of stories and content. It was nice that USA Today added the splashes of color and color photos. But it was media cotton candy. The New York Times and the Washington Post still are the T-bone steaks. I still look for those great papers in libraries or, at a lesser degree, online. I haven't seen a copy of USA Today in years. Does it still exist?
• Even Facebook falls short for me because it is Twitter-like in its brevity that works well for chit-chat about how the "weather is bad" or "it's time for a beer" or "I just got to the zinnia level of the zombie flower game I am playing." Oops, the last comment may be too long, in words, characters, and attention-deficit, for Facebook. But what I mean is that anything of depth is not what Facebook and other social networking sites are about apparently. Media cotton candy again.
• I wonder just how "lasting" a lot of this new media, including sites on the Internet, will be. When I subscribe to a newspaper or a magazine, I usually stay for years. I can't think of one newspaper or magazine website on the Internet that I go to as consistently. In fact, I have lost more interest in websites the longer they exist than I have found in terms of maintaining a connection. When eBay first started, I was excited to surf for items and to even sell some items. But about eight years ago or so, eBay became more "corporate" with lots of big companies getting into the act and I think the feeling of an individual finding items in the attic that he wanted to sell was lost. I haven't been back to eBay in years. I used to enjoy looking at all the videos on YouTube. I haven't been there in months. I used to go to Salon.com, as it has some very good writers, such as Glenn Greenwald. But I haven't been there in weeks and once when I returned, it had changed its look and I felt like I had to re-learn the procedure for looking or writing comments. No time for that. I only go to the Huffington Post when relatives send me links to something interesting. I certainly prefer the progressive sites to the conservative sites, just as I never go to the Fox channel on TV, but I still want to read or see objective and neutral reporting, for my own evaluations or the scope of the arguments, and I just don't tend to find that on the Internet. I am on Facebook, but now I visit it about once every two weeks, just to keep up with the chit-chat. Facebook probably has reduced e-mailing. As I have heard from others too, I get less personal e-mails now than ever before, though there is still plenty of it coming from spam sources. So, even e-mail is losing its popularity.
• I don't like the idea of connecting my bank account to anything on the web. So, the paypal concept doesn't work for me. If a website is paypal only, I don't buy products.
• I heard from a recent broadcast speaker that the fastest-growing user group for Facebook now is the group of middle-aged to older women. Hmmm? I have this theory called "Theory of the Generations," which theorizes that when older generations take over a youth media, fad, or product, the young people move on to something else (and new). I have often said that when some young men were walking around in the fashion fad of letting their trousers drop low enough so that their boxer-covered butts were exposed (and fortunately at least the fad included boxer shorts), the sure-fire way of eliminating the fad was if the faculty and parents had done the same thing for about a week. That would have killed the fad pretty immediately and beyond measure. MySpace gave way to Facebook. What will replace Facebook for the new youth social network?
• I heard a faculty adviser from a Missouri university comment that, while college students will place zillions of personal photos on their social networks, why is it that it remains somewhat difficult to get them to go out and take photographs of news events and activities on campus? Wow, I don't know, either. Students in journalism and mass media are wasting their valuable time if they are spending too much of it on Facebook and social networks. They should be creating portfolio-quality products and experiencing journalistic moments in order to make the most of their education and to get a good boost into the professional world. Much of their work then could still end up online, but involving subjects beyond themselves and published in more serious form.
• The "lasting" feature is problematic to new media. I believe people are wrong if they think that newspapers will vanish and Internet sites will pick up their place. I don't think new media may last long enough, in any form that becomes a tradition, to not be easily replaced. New media is also partly about product sales. The way of selling electronic products is to change them. For example, the VHS tape gave way to DVDs and now Blu-Ray and 3-D wants to claim the DVD customer base. If you have lots of money, you can keep up with electronic media products.
• It took about 10 years for digital cameras to get good enough for the replacement of 35mm camera, though some photographers might disagree. I certainly love the replacement of the chemical darkroom with the computer darkroom of Photoshop. I like the immediacy of the digital photo and its transfer capabilities. But I kept looking for a digital camera that would have, not only removable lenses, but also a shutter speed adjustment on the outside of the camera...and with digital cameras at 12 megapixels that I have recently seen, it finally has arrived, or so I have now found them.

Jackson Hole, estate tax, and the national media...

I waited a whole week for CNN's "The State of the Union with John King" to broadcast of a segment about anchor John King's visit to Wyoming, the last of the 50 states that he has visited since his program began. At the beginning of the segment, King said he wanted to visit all 50 states, so he could talk to "regular" people in America. Wow, that was comical, based upon the choice of Jackson Hole as the site of his visit.

The segment aired on Sunday. And it was quite horrible. It was pretty much a farce. But, no doubt, it gave King a nice assignment junket trip to see some beautiful Wyoming landscape. Whenever some national newsperson wants to involve Wyoming, it usually means a quick plane ride into Jackson, followed by a quick plane ride out. That's what they see of Wyoming. The beautiful mountains in a resort and ski town where only the rich can own houses. The average price of houses in Jackson is $1 million, according to one of the Jackson guests in the report. I would guess that the estimate is correct. Rich politicians, like Cheney, and Hollywood stars own cabins or estates in the Jackson area. Jackson is to Wyoming about as much as Hollywood is to California. John King missed the regular people in Wyoming.

The King interview also featured three Jacksonites who dodged the truth about how many people view the "residency" of former Vice President Dick Cheney. When Cheney first ran with George W. Bush, he had to declare Wyoming as his home state in order to constitutionally come from a state other than Texas which was Bush's home state. Cheney really was a Texan, residing in Texas at the time, working in the state. He had left Wyoming. Yet another fraud of the Bush years. Even when he ran as a Wyoming Congressman, the election allowed him to leave the state. When my brothers were drafted out of Wyoming during the Vietnam War period, Cheney used five deferments to avoid the draft. He ran from military service and, ironically, now acts like he's America's greatest warrior. Another fraud.

I had to dodge the TV networks this Sunday as Cheney's daughter Liz ended up on two. She was on John King's show on CNN, so I switched the channel for that segment. Then she was on ABC's "This Week," so I switched the channel there. We, who are really from Wyoming, know how she ended up with a big-shot job as deputy secretary of state during the Bush years. It is the same way that Michael Powell, son of General Colin Powell, became FCC chairman during the Bush years. And it wasn't because of qualifications. Can anyone, including the media, say "nepotism"?

It is only natural for national news personalities to gravitate toward rich resort towns and rich people, because often they are part of that class; their networks play to that class. Congress and both political parties eagerly serve that class. That's probably why Congress and the national media allowed the estate tax to lapse on January 1. The estate tax brought in $14 billion to the U.S. Treasury, a sizable amount when everyone, especially Republicans, are screaming about the deficit and governmental spending. (The expense of endless wars can be costly, too, by the way.) The estate tax involved only about 5,500 very wealthy families, which is less than one percent of American families. But it wasn't something Congress apparently wanted to keep.

Politicians and the national news media sure are good to rich people. They all may want to fly into Jackson and celebrate.