I came to realize in my time as a student reporter at an esteemed college newspaper that mainstream journalism is structurally flawed.

It is not my intent to knock the paper, which was valuable to my maturation as a writer.  As an arts reporter, specifically, as the senior music reporter, I covered an array of different music- and arts-related events.  This gave me some very good experience and allowed me to establish some early contacts.

However, despite the “unbiased” approach I took to my writing, it was ultimately unsatisfying.  Despite my best efforts to prevent it, my stories were essentially PR pieces, advertisements for the events I was covering.  I realize that standard news reporting doesn’t have the same kind of public relations bias that some of the “softer” things do, but any story can (and will) be spun.  Even when I’m writing a preview of a concert for a band I enjoy, I feel as if I’m some kind of shill, a pitchman trying to sell a commodity.  I relished the chance to write album reviews, since I was free to insert my own opinion into my writing.  But even those are tempered by a loyalty to “decency” — Lester Bangs was fired from Rolling Stone for insulting Canned Heat — and a willingness to consider some of the bile the big record companies release as being worthy of review in the first place.

In other words, mainstream journalism is not for me.

I learned in my media ethics class that it’s impossible to remain completely impartial, regardless of the journalist’s integrity.  I’d like to add to that statement.  I think remaining impartial is unnecessary.  Intentional bias is better than the kind that results from trying to be impartial.  It may be less ethical, but we live in a world where gigantic financial firms collapse, are bailed out by the government, and then use that money to reward the very people responsible for the problems in the first place.  The ends justify the means; if your intentions are pure, the path you take is less important.

Television programs like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have proven that media parody has mainstream appeal.  Even more interesting, both shows have assumed roles as media watchdogs (see Jon Stewart’s interview with Jim Cramer).  There’s more to news than straight reporting, and the monumental failure of print journalism has only served to prove it.  Ridiculing the hypocrisies of mainstream media outlets while telling the Truth is a big step in the direction of journalism’s salvation.

No more bullshit.  No more pandering.

No reason to try to please anyone.  Journalism isn’t about making friends.  Will this outlook ruffle some feathers?  There’s no doubt.  But then again, isn’t that the point? Great journalism has always come at someone’s expense.

I got into journalism because I’m really interested in prying. I think it comes down to that. I get curious about the story behind things, whether they’re twisted people or shady places. Optimally both. I have an inquisitive mind, a trait that is valued in grade school but later becomes an irritating character flaw.

This is probably a common thread for journalists, certainly ones who are interested in doing investigative work. Woodward and Bernstein didn’t uncover the biggest political scandal in American history by minding their respective businesses. They got their hands dirty. Same goes for any number of other successful news breakers and whistle blowers. Hunter Thompson certainly had an eye for the truth, though his style often took an unorthodox and roundabout path to it. It’s this thirst for uncovering hidden truths that separates true journalists from public relations people. It’s not that PR doesn’t have its own important place in the world, but there’s a definite distinction.

The biggest badasses in Hollywood cinema often have this gift/curse: see Bullitt (Steve McQueen) and Dirty Harry (Clint Eastwood) for two examples. Granted, these characters are often cops, but PIs and journalists have a healthy representation as well.

And so it’s the desire for background information and new facts that leads me to hang around places I probably shouldn’t be, like the abandoned complex of greenhouses near my house. Deserted locations are particularly enjoyable. The mystery surrounding them is intoxicating. I may never know what exactly happened to the people who are no longer inhabiting the area, but the thrill is in trying to figure it out.

Nikola Tesla was a certified badass.

He was, at least as far as a scientist can be considered a badass.  His research formed the basis of the electric alternating current power systems we use today.  He also made significant advances in the fledgling field of radio.

He was born this day in 1856.

Clearly his coolest invention in terms of sheer terrifying power was the Tesla coil, a large enough incarnation of which could easily fry you to death.  Don’t believe me?  Watch.

Now just stand next to that thing.

There’s also an electric car named after him, the Tesla Roadster, that’s based on the beautifully alien Lotus Elise.

In the news again: racism is alive and well in the United States.

Members of a Philadelphia area swim club complained heartily when a day care center brought a group of children to swim in the club’s pool.  The reason: some of those children were black.  The center’s money refunded with no explanation.

I first read about this here, but the major news networks quickly picked up the story.  

Swim club president John Duesler said in a statement released to the media, “There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club.”

I don’t know if he meant “complexion” literally, but he might as well have.

It makes me physically ill to see this kind of thing happen.  Perhaps no one thought racism was completely eradicated, especially considering its persistence in mainstream cinema, but it’s never easier to swallow when it happens again.

Luckily, people are doing something about this.  From the CNN article: 

“The stepfather of one of the children was filing a complaint against the club with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, the panel’s chairman, Stephen Glassman, said Thursday.”

I wasn’t aware of this before, even though it happened about a year ago, so I thought it was worth mentioning.

Apparently, Fox News was feeling unhappy with its treatment at the hands of the New York Times, particularly criticism from reporter Jacques Steinberg and editor Steven Reddicliffe.  And so, Fox and Friends hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade proclaimed Steinberg and Reddicliffe “attack dogs.”  They aired photos of the two to accompany the story.

However, they weren’t just any photos.  Fox News had doctored both pictures to make the Times’ men look horrifying.  Their teeth were yellowed, their noses were enlarged.

It isn’t especially surprising, considering Fox News’ apparent belief that the right way to fight the “liberal media” is to be doubly biased in the other direction.  However, how can a network that alters photos outright claim to accurately report the news?

I studied journalism in college.  We learned that even reversing a photo (or publishing a mirror image) is essentially an unethical alteration, or a failure to report the facts.  Compare that to Fox’s use of Photoshop and come to your own conclusions.

It’s barely relevant to anything, but this is just plain badass.

The website, RIPT Apparel, debuts a new shirt every day.  Each shirt is about $10.  The catch: the shirt is only available for the duration of that day.  If you don’t buy it, it’s gone forever.

I missed out on the Gonzo shirt.  Pretty unhappy about that.

There’s something in the air in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

It’s the stench of oil-soaked denim, gasoline, smoke and death.

The Pagans Motorcycle Club, a group of iron horse outlaws and rivals of the Hell’s Angels, has been making some noise in the past few years.  It’s been enough to attract police attention.

Maybe you thought the one-percenters were dead, a product of the late ’60s that had long gone out of style.

But the outlaw spirit can never die.  As long as there is human nature, as long as there is an establishment, the fringe elements will be there, lurking in the shadows.

They’re loners, reactionaries, criminals and rebels, all bound by their bikes and society’s unwillingness to accept them.  Some of them, if not for the MC, would have no friends at all.  And yet, they stand by their ideals like most others cannot.

They’re marauders on smoke-belching steeds of steel and leather.  They favor big, loud and heavy American bikes with gigantic engines.  They wield wooden axe handles and motorcycle chains. 

The Pagans are outlaws even among outlaws, perhaps the most dangerous of the one-percenters.  They’re elusive and secretive, forgoing patches that might tell the cops where their chapter is located.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that two members of the Pagans, currently based in Washington County, Pennsylvania, are going to court.

Law enforcement officials have been building a case against the club for over three years.  Cops even staked out a Pagans run at the Yukon picnic area in Westmoreland County.

Several members of the club were arrested on charges that included motorcycle theft and drug trafficking.

Though the cops are getting involved, these arrests only prove the Pagans are regrouping.

Hunter Thompson would be proud.

Lately, it’s seemed as if Facebook becomes even more nefarious as each day passes.

It started reasonably harmless.  A simpler, less abrasive version of Internet’s favorite social cesspool, Myspace, Facebook was aimed first at Harvard students and then the college population at large.  It allowed you to connect with friends, meet your future roommates and publish silly photos.

In a few years, allegations surfaced that Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg had stolen the Facebook concept from fellow Harvard students.  We didn’t care who made Facebook.  We just liked to use it.

Something happened in the courts.  Some annoying chain Facebook groups circulated, claiming Facebook was closing.  Nothing happened, we forgot about it.

Then, Zuckerberg opened his site up to everyone.  People with no college connections were free to seep into Facebook, opening up opportunities for employers to spy on prospective employees, for cops to gather evidence, for Internet voyeurs to creep around.

We upped our privacy settings and grew a little more wary.

Successive redesigns brought some feeble complaints from Facebook users.  Ads started appearing where they didn’t belong.  Third-party applications started cheapening the Facebook experience, turning it into the Myspace no one wanted it to be.

Finally, Facebook tried to slip a few policy changes past users that would’ve made any content stored on the site property of Zuckerberg. 

Though that attempt mostly backfired, it hasn’t stopped him from continuing to meddle.

Marshall Kirkpatrick writes for the New York Times that the newest Facebook “innovation” will be the most infuriating yet.

Facebook/Zuckerberg’s most recent evil plan is to force Facebook users to make their status messages public.  Likewise for their photos and videos.

It’s obvious people aren’t going to like this.  It’s hard to understand who it benefits, or why this idea ever surfaced.  Even so, it’s happening, and we have to deal with it.

Kirkpatrick writes of the positive aspects of this change.  Google will be able to access Facebook profiles.  Facebook could be a valuable tool for gauging public sentiment about important issues, based on status messages.

Also, supposedly, the option to return your profile to privacy will be available.  It sure seems like that option will be well hidden, considering it appears Facebook wants to make everything public.

Perhaps now is the time to move on from Facebook.  Zuckerberg already sleeps on a mountain of C notes.  Why does he keep fiddling with a winning formula?

Fight back.  Close your Facebook account, boycott it.  Write angry e-mails and status messages.  At the very least, make sure you make your profile private again the second the Man tries to open it to the world.

Take to the streets and riot.  The Great Facebook Riot of 2009 has a ring to it, no? 

Mahalo.

We already knew Michael Bay was a hack.  Now we also know he’s a racist.

Forget, for a moment, that Transformers 2 was just plain putrid.  It was.  It was about an hour and a half longer than it needed to be, considering it was completely plotless, nearly 3 hours of unconvincing CGI robot fights and hackneyed dialogue.

Michael Bay’s a major studio darling, capable of churning out pure crap and still convincing the groveling masses to shell out cash to see it.

Yet the massive amount of money Transformers 2 made in theatres, despite having no redeeming features, isn’t even the greatest travesty.

The real problem: the movie is chock full o’ racism.

The two small twin Autobots in the movie, Mudflap and Skids, put on a bumbling, bickering show from the moment they show up on the screen. It’s clear they’re intended as comic relief, but something else becomes equally clear soon after.

They’re caricatures of American black culture.

They speak in exaggerated jive.  They have prominent gold teeth (Do robots even have teeth?  No, but these do).  At one point, when Shia LaBeouf asks them to translate something written in the language of the robots, they respond to the effect of, “We don’t do much readin’.”  They refer to the movie’s Latino character with vaguely racist terms.

Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that racism has come back out of the shadows in mainstream movies.  Hollywood has been guilty of perpetuating every type of derogatory stereotype.  Even so, it seems like it’s getting worse, not better.

Americans are so desensitized to this kind of thing that many people are unaware of the blatant racism present in the movie.

How far have we come?  The crows in Dumbo acted like this.  Decades of fighting for civil rights, all for naught.

Perhaps we have bigger problems to be worrying about.  The recession, wars in the Middle East and North Korean aggression are obviously more pressing concerns.  Even so, we shouldn’t take this laying down.

Michael Bay has defended the characters, refusing to acknowledge even the possibility of some accidental racism.  Instead, he’s smugly insisted the racist robots are “good, clean fun.”

Some other commercials that really grind my shit: (surprise!) the entire Bud Light “Drinkability” line with the dudes drawing on the air.

One of my least favorite of these already vomit-inducingly bad ads is the one that starts with a guy bouncing a paddle ball he apparently drew using his magic finger. I honestly don’t remember the reason why, but he decides to draw a random ass door in the air. Long story short, he and his buddy end up in an Old West-style saloon. All of the surly bearded cowboys stand up and look vaguely menacing.

Bud Light dumbass 1: Draw another door.

Bud Light dumbass 2: Don’t say draw.

That’s just great. I get the whole “draw” joke, ha ha. Unfortunately, you said it again, dumbfuck, so if this was actually the Old West and not a feeble excuse for a television commercial, it’d be your ass that got smoked.

I’d like to film an alternate version of this ad, in which both assholes say “draw” to each other until they both get riddled with bullets dispensed from every Remington revolver in the entire bar.

The narrator then goes into his little pitch about “drinkability” and my blood pressure starts to return to normal. But wait, those bastards want to make it spike just once more. The camera cuts back to the saloon, where Mr. Magic Finger is sitting at a table, playing cards with the surly cowboys. He lays down a hand of shittily-scribbled “cards.”

Bud Light dumbass: Seven aces.

He’s worried about getting killed when his buddy says “draw,” but he has no problem cheating blatantly at cards during an era when that was probably the easiest way to commit suicide?

There’s nothing I want more than to see that mouth breather shot right in the face.