Domestic Psychology

not-news

// May 17th, 2011 // No Comments » // media, newspapers

When you cease to investigate and report facts so that you can focus on repeating opinions found on social media sites, you are an opinion aggregator and not news. When your economic model is HuffPo’s make money off free submissions from users, you do not have reporters and are not news. User submitted pictures of cats is not news. PR agency text ads are not news. Celebrity nose jobs are not news.

Pick up a phone, send an email or knock on the door of all the reporters that you fired several years ago and ask them to explain news to you.

Everyone’s children

// September 4th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // newspapers, parenting

I have been uncharacteristically quiet about a local tragedy for several reasons. First, better writers are giving it the attention it deserves. Second, I don’t see any good or bad guys. I see teenagers. Everyone involved in this is connected in far less than six degrees from every other teenager in Knoxville. When I did try to connect dots, I was scolded by a parent who didn’t want to consider any connection between her child and someone else’s child. Third, I have spent enough time with this population to know that their experiences are not something anyone’s child should ever endure. They detach emotionally and behave in very primal ways to survive. Once you have looked in the soul-less eyes of a 14-y-o as they explain that their acts as a drug whore didn’t count as sex, the world looks a little bleaker than it should. There will never be justice for this child. It will always be an injustice.

That said, I am angry about the article in today’s newspaper. It reads like a PR piece for the Sheriff’s department and calls a grieving mother a liar. Everything that was written by that mother was her personal experience. She is living a walking nightmare right now. The author of the article has no right to judge or deny someone their very raw feelings. The comments that are being allowed on the newspaper website are vile. I have some very specific thoughts for the article’s author that I won’t post here. I do hope that nobody makes the mistake of granting Don Jacobs an interview in the future.

Sunday paper

// September 20th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // life, newspapers, parenting

I dug the last of the silver colored coins from the change jar to buy a Sunday paper. Tommy and his friend handed me the paper and I sat down to sort the paper into the order I like to read it. The editorial section went at the top of the pile and the coupons that are my excuse for buying the paper, were saved for last. The sports section went directly to the recycling bin. Something was missing from my pile of newsprint. There was no comics section.

“Tommy? I think you bought a paper without a comics section.”
“It had a comics section, but I pulled it out to read it.”
“Okay. I’d like it back when you’re done.”

I made my way through the news and got up to get the scissors for coupon clipping.

“Tommy? Aren’t you finished with the comics yet?”
“I finished a long time ago. Somebody else must have them now.”
“Noah? Do you have the comics?”
“I did, but I don’t now.”
“Amy? Do you have the comics?”
“Sarah took them from me.”

I looked at the tiny, chopped up scraps of colorful newsprint all over Sarah’s desk and floor. Sigh. No Sunday comics for me. I expect something funnier than the same, tired knock-knock joke from the children this week.

“Knock-knock!”
“Who’s there?”
<- insert anything here ->
“_____ who?”
“On your head! Bwa-ha-ha!”

apologies to the Buggles

// April 30th, 2009 // No Comments » // blogging, media, music, newspapers, video

I read you in the bed on Sunday afternoons
Lying awake reading the day before’s news.
I should have known the stories had all changed by then.
Oh-a oh
They took the credit for your second symphony.
Rewritten by machine and new technology,
And now I understand the problems you can see.
Oh-a oh
I met your readers
Oh-a oh
What did you sell them?
Internet killed the newspaper.
Internet killed the newspaper.
Bloggers came and broke your heart.
Oh-a-a-a oh
And now we read on our laptops and our cell phones.
We think of newsprint and it seems so long ago.
And you remember the ink smudged fingers, oh.
Oh-a oh
You were the first one.
Oh-a oh
You were the last one.
Internet killed the newspaper.
Internet killed the newspaper.
In my home and in my car,
We can’t unplug we’ve gone to far
Oh-a-aho oh,
Oh-a-aho oh
Internet killed the newspaper.
Internet killed the newspaper.
In my home and in my car,
We can’t unplug we’ve gone to far.
Bloggers came and broke your heart,
Look I’ll read my Twitter feed.
You are a newspaper star.
You are a newspaper star.
Internet killed the newspaper.
Internet killed the newspaper.
Internet killed the newspaper.
Internet killed the newspaper.
Internet killed the newspaper.
Internet killed the newspaper.
Internet killed the newspaper.
Internet killed the newspaper.
Internet killed the newspaper.

famous last words

// February 10th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // aspergers, life, media, newspapers, school, technology

Me: “I wouldn’t have chosen to tell that story if it was going to get KNS comments.”