MAY
14, 2004 --
The first feature,
about viewing outside the event won't appear for another week,
or so, but these reflections, on media, are another form of such
viewing. Most of us view the media from the outside. Who knows,
perhaps Divine Providence gave us the internet and websites precisely
at this time, at the behest of our Founding Fathers and Abigail
Adams, because media has gotten so far away from us.
On May 4, Clyde
Haberman, in his column in The New York Times carries
on about the $95 cost of tickets to Yankee games. He went with
a friend from the other coast, two days before, perhaps deciding
to go at the last minute. (It is not clear that Mr. Haberman treated
the friend to the game.) Now, that is something, to get choice
Yankee tickets at the last minute (no indication that they were
purchased form scalpers, although Mr. Haberman seems to insinuate
that regular Yankee seats are reaching scalping levels). Or is
he saying that the problem is that the money isn't going mainly
for city taxes?
Perhaps Mr. Haberman
would not have written the column about the price of going to Yankee
Stadium had he not spent $95 for a ticket. (Did his friend really
pay for himself?) Mr. Haberman did not mention the security check
in getting into the Stadium. Did he enter by the Press Gate? Reporter's
bags are inspected, but I have not seen media get the close inspection
given the citizenry. I didn't see Jeff Greenfield, for example,
get patted down when he went into the ballpark a couple of weeks
ago.
Mr. Haberman
was one of the several New York Times people this writer
contacted about the Dayton Seaside property tax matter --- eliciting
no interest from him. If only the city had manipulated property
taxes to force this property into bankruptcy to get him removed
from the premises.
And in The
Washington Post, May 2, Charles Lane, now a Post staffer,
but formerly editor of The New Republic, lamented how
the media seem to be taken in by people who are great a pulling
the wool over editors' eyes --- like Jack Kelly, at USA Today,
or Stephen Glass, at The New Republic when Lane was
editor, or Jayson Blair at The New York Times.
If editors rush
to defend a "charming sociopath" or "deceiving sociopaths" -- |
)
)
