The Country Star vs. The Nanny
By
The best part about writing a personal blog so far would be that I don’t have to propose or defend what I want to write about, or even adhere to my original ideas while I am typing. It feels more like a conversation when I just start with some recent observations and then go on about whatever comes to mind next, and in the end, the process feels more honest and results are more authentic.
If any sort of accidental niche seems to be emerging, I guess it might be some sort of news analysis, contrasting new media and old as I move from my former mainstream career to whatever comes next.
Meanwhile, one of my still-employed MSM colleagues expressed some surprise when I forwarded a post from perezhilton.com - about Macaulay Culkin’s sister dying in an accident this week – because she couldn’t find it in the Los Angeles Times. Of course the LAT is a subsidiary of the Tribune Company which filed for bankruptcy this week; so, maybe everybody is busy looking for new jobs, but the reporting discrepancy was still a milestone in my experience.
Not so long ago, it was startling to see when celebrity sites broke news first, but the traditional media were never far behind. Eventually, I found a post in a LAT blog, but even that credited TMZ and offered no original reporting.
I was also surprised when a blog post at the The New York Times, our national paper of record, with 98 Pulitzers; named “The Gray Lady” for its staid appearance and style, TMI’d me yesterday with nothing less than: Orgasms During Childbirth? (Comparatively, the NYT front page story on Youtube stars – which I wrote about earlier this week - seems almost important.)
My other new addiction involves the ubiquity of online polls and surveys, and my favorite new trend, the villain poll. This morning, I read another poll suggesting men and women would prefer to go without sex than without Facebook – at least for two weeks – but when I went back to Google it just now I was frightened away by some other results. You’re on your own.
Finally, Sarah Palin is looking pretty good compared to a couple of new candidates. Fran Drescher wants to run for Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat, Tim McGraw wants to be the governor of Tennessee, and I don’t like where this is going.
Please take a second to vote below and I will post the results next week.
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