Olber-mann, what you doin'?

It's been revealed that MSNBC anchor and neo-Murrowite Keith Olbermann was suspended indefinitely without pay after contributing to three separate Democratic candidate's campaigns this week. But why? What for? FOX News has several Republican candidates on the payroll as contributors; so why is MSNBC struggling to appear "objective?"

If you have ever watched MSNBC side by side with FOX News Channel, it's blatant left-liberal bias is as insidious as FOX' own brand of right-wing conservatism. FOX raison d'etre is to provide "fair and balanced" coverage as an isle of conservative right-wing truth in an ocean of Hollywood dominated liberalism. Like any good right-winger, it appears perpetually assailed from the left like the underdogs of journalism despite being part of the largest media conglomerate that world has ever known.

By exposing Olbermann as a Democratic party supporter, it gives FOX news the upper hand and a free shot at MSNBC. Like O'Reilly's McCarthy to Olbermann's Murrow, O'Reilly can proclaim MSNBC as a "bed of leftists" and continue to rail against their leftist bias. By allowing FOX journalists to contribute to the campaigns of the Republican of their choice, they can not be accused of being anything but journalists doing their job under the strictures of their company's internal policy.

But where was the ethical pressure of MSNBC management for Olbermann to tell the objective, verifiable truth anyway? Where is the funding for real investigative journalism and voices to debunk, with empirical and reasonable evidence, the dubious claims of those they seek to denigrate? I still feel that these two stations degrade and almost mock public discourse in the US, reducing public debate to a nightly slanging match that provides little substance in the way of public policy scrutiny.

FOX news insists that their map is the territory and all other maps by their mere articulation by those who are not part of FOX are false. Their "truth" is validated by the fact it is being reported by them. MSNBC have made it their mission to break free from FOX' sinister Aristotelian nightmare but have only served to ruin their credibility further by doing so.

MSNBC makes its money through being as biased as FOX albeit in the other direction. FOX, like professional wrestlers, don't break kayfabe as readily as their MSNBC counterparts. Paradoxically, people feel more deceived now by MSNBC when they told the truth that their anchor may have been lying.

By keeping up the facade, MSNBC's credibility would have stayed intact as "objective" if they believed Olbermann was (by their own standards) acting ethically.

If MSNBC now strives for journalistic objectivity and integrity, they are going against their best interests. It may just happen that they will report the truth one day and live to regret it.

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http://twitter.com/crushtor

Facebook Follies

Apropos my recent Twitter and Facebook "embargo," I've found it increasingly difficult to avoid Facebook entirely, especially now that I've been contracted as a media consultant to Diamond Dog Food and Bakery, a boutique dog food, drink and product store in Bayside Melbourne. (Please "like it" so I can access a custom URL!)

The experience thus far has given cause to put a personal "value" on the friends I keep on there. One Facebook contact I saw tried to passive-aggressively knock me down a peg - I had no care for his online "friendship" so I deleted him on the spot. I have no time to waste on people like that.

The Twitter hiatus has gone well, despite breaking it once to share a link to an interview I did with Jonas Renkse of Katatonia.

In a recent essay, I charged that Facebook and Twitter aren't just part of our media culture but a culture in and of themselves. I feel now that Facebook is borderline "unavoidable" if you wish to participate in commerce in any meaningful fashion.

Over time, I am becoming less and less enamored with both Twitter and Facebook and more likely to fight the urge to tweet or post. I caught myself thinking in 140 character "bites" to share with other people about 20-30 times over the last few days and had to actively stop myself from reaching into my pocket or firing up TweetDeck. If anything, it's shown me that I still have an attachment to being liked, being seen as witty or intelligent and as a good writer. If I can overcome those attachments, it lifts a massive burden from myself and eases a lot of self-imposed stress.

I don't feel disconnected from my friends - the connections on Facebook are devoid of intimacy and reality. The challenge is to find social relationships with substance in real life with real people, every day.

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http://twitter.com/crushtor

Renovation of the Soul

If there's nothing to be learned in life then in my opinion, you aren't living life. This past week has been full of anger, tumult, hate, love and renewal. Just today I was caught between bliss and indignation, the latter caused by a failure to stop and take repose. In moments of intense pressure, the head takes flight and the heart gears for war.

Rationality has no meaning and in some cases, the sounds coming out of one's mouth would sound almost foreign to you and others in calmer moments. A industry colleague of mine, after unjustly calling him "unprofessional" (I later apologized and thanked him for his good work and kind words) advised me to "kick back."

Kick back! If only I could kick back, I thought. I have work - paid, unpaid and academic to finish. I have all these attachments that signify anything other than kicking back. But why? Was this true? Had I forgotten my GS training? Were my meditations and self-reflections all for naught?

These items of paper with instructions printed on them are not the cause of my stress and worry. Ultimately, I am the culprit. If I am dissatisfied with an aspect of my life, then I can only really blame myself. So I took his advice. I poured myself a double whiskey and sipped a while. My feelings told me that I was putting myself under the "pump" rather than anyone else. My thoughts were not in alignment with reality - 3,000w of 4,000w done with 2 full days to complete the remainder? Hardly a challenge for me. It has been done before and can be done again. My internal map was very much out of alignment with the blank, "objective" territory.

Reading my colleague Sandi's blog, she has learned a lot in 26 years. She makes some good points, others I disagree with. But there is one point that remains pertinent:

Disappointment and hurt is everywhere in life. Happiness and wonder is also everywhere in life. Choose what you decide to focus on.

Just like a modern day Marcus Aurelius, we sometimes have to sometimes stop and remind ourselves: "The universe is change, life is what our thoughts make it."

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http://twitter.com/crushtor