Fabio look-alike pig farmers.

It's not just reporters who need better P.R. Here's a link to pictures of three Fabio look-alike pig farming brothers who may be trying to burnish the image of their profession to counter bad publicity generated by the Robert Pickton trial.

http://www.anccshosting.com/bartlingbrothers/scripts/aboutUs.asp

There's a lot of truth to the bad boy image of firefighters. One of my brothers is a firefighter. Being married with kids hasn't caused him to turn away all the groupies who are constantly throwing themselves at his feet. Some women seem to have a thing for uniforms. We were comparing family photos during coffee break at work when a female co-worker saw a picture of my brother in his uniform. She immediately demanded that I give her his phone number. She didn't back off at all when I told her he was married with kids.

we love journalists like prostitutes, really

I think the real reason people rank journalists so low in polls is for the same reason so many men who visit prostitutes publicly proclaim prostitution is a terrible thing.

People feel humiliated by what has power over them, and want to pretend their above it.

Many men feel disempowered by sexy women who won't have sex with them except for money. Similarly, the general public are abjectly obedient slaves to whatever journalists tell them, and so when asked, they'll claim they "don't trust" journalists. Yeah, right! The problem is, most North Americans worship their news sources and live by what they learn from them like a bad religion. If people actually didn't trust journalists, we'd be much better off as a society.

Quote:We were comparing

What? No tele-commuting? Why do you hate the planet?

just teasing C.C., I couldn't resist.

backbone needed

If mainstream media reporters would get some backbone and refuse to write for publishers that want only half-truths and lies, then we might actually get some news that matters. In today's age of the Internet and digital publishing, I wonder why there aren't more challenges to the mainstream media. Why are they not banding together and publishing their own big newspapers to compete with CanWest/ Global. They could compile all of the things that people want: comics, editorials, something bloody, something crazy, truth about the government, obituaries, car ads, and grocery ads, etc. The only reason I can imagine that mainstream writers continue to allow their names to be attached to half-truths and lies is that they lack integrity: the whole lot of them has sold out.

If writers would do their true jobs and refuse to allow their stories to be bastardized and slanted by their editors, we wouldn't have to worry about Spiderman being falsely accused. The publishers would have nothing without their writers.

The point is missed

The problem is far more complex than simply accusing reporters of being 'sell-outs'. For starters, I hate to break it to you, but not every journalist is a left-leaning anti-corporate socialist. They come in all flavours just like regular folk.

Next, you have advertisers... who are unlikely to run ads in papers that decry consumerism, so the message starts to get diluted to ensure there will be backers to keep the publication coming off the presses. That is the nature of the system as it stands, and as strong an argument for some form of public broadcaster to counter that trend as you are ever going to get.

And, you have people like myself (a cog in the mainstream media machine), who believe that the best we can hope for is some measure of incremental change. One might look at how environmentalism has moved from fringe to mainstream and realize that the media have played a large part in that shift, albeit not in an instantaneous fashion.

Finally, the media isn't there to provide you with an instruction manual on how to live. The press reflects the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be. This is right and proper, otherwise it it simply propaganda.

If all the reporters quit do you really think it would do anything except add to the unemployment lines? Do you really think there wouldn't be a hundred wannabes ready to take their place? Be careful what you wish for; the unintended consequences might be disastrous for freedom of the press.

excuse the typos

in the above. time to log off.

Calling Shannon's bluff

Alright. I'll be the one to say it.

YOU FIRST!

Seriously, a calendar, why not. I'd put it on my desk, no problem.

Half-truths and lies

Hey Stump,

Don't you think that people can believe in free enterprise without succumbing to only telling one side of a story. It is my belief that more often than not, incremental change is no change at all.

I don't believe tha press reflects the world as it is. I believe it portrays truth according to the owners of the press. For instance, the new-found focus on global warming and Picton takes the focus away from health care, poverty and the wholesale selloff of the assets of the province. Those assts belonged to the people of BC, and they were under the people's control. Now they belong to big business (much of it foreign-owned - especially USA) and the people have less and less control of the costs of using those assets nor do they share in the profits. Big business would not have bought those assets if they couldn't make money. This government has deemed that the wealthy should profit from those assets and not the people. That is the the huge truth that is avoided. To me, this is thievery and collusion of the highest order.

Why isn't BC Rail, Alcoa, BC Ferries, BC Hydro, and BC/Terasen Gas always front page news? How did the Bennet/Domtar scandal fizzle out without anyone hearing why? Why did they make Glen Clark's little deck built by his neighbour front page news for months on end? They are still crying about his deck and he was proven innocent. I have built decks and porches for free for neighbours. I built a good deal of a community hall and a whole house for free for a poor single mum, whom I barely knew - and there was nothing wrong with that. It was mine to give away.

The railroad or the electricity (or the right to generate it) or the natural gas transmission of the province of BC - those didn't belong to the government that virtually gave them away. They weren't this government's to sell. They were this government's to protect. These stories aren't being told. I never see this side in the mainstream editorial pages though I know several people who continue to make polite and thoughtful submissions to the editors.

The public drives the process

Because people aren't clamoring to hear about it.

Unfortunately, we get the news the people are interested in.

clamoring

I'm clamoring, Stump, and so are many people that I know. I think that it's the owners of the major media that clamor when they do hear of it. If major media made it big news, it would become big news.

I think reporters need a good union that has strong ethical guidelines for balanced reporting. It is the media's sacred trust to report the news, not slant it or act as the mouthpiece for various politicians.

author's name change

Wasn't this story, as originally published on the 30th, signed by another 'Shannon' and since changed to 'Rupp'?

Just curious. Problem with editiorial changes in a place like this is that's it's very simple to cover your tracks if the original error just disappears into thin air.

Clamoring

I hear what you're saying SIG. I'm clamoring too, but unfortunately, we're still in the minority. As I mentioned earlier, the current situation is as good an argument for public broadcasting as you are likely to get IMO.

I guess you're trying to be funny.

But if you actually think this is what being a REPORTER is all about then I'd suggest it explains a lot about what's really seriously awry in the world of journalism in Canada these days.

writes Shannon Rupp.

I thought reporters were in the business of reporting 'the good, the bad and the ugly' - and letting the people decide for themselves.

I guess that's why I have so much trouble with the way you play the journalistic GAME.

It is a good idea to remember it's about Who, What, When, Where and sometimes Why and has nothing at all to do with how popular the 'reporter' can make him or herself.

Calendars are the last thing good journalism needs.

we need more journalism such

we need more journalism such as that provided by FOX. the cbc needs to be s$@*&canned. public broadcasting should be charity supported -not taxpayer subsidised.

Ted Tweak

You must be joking

There's more journalism on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show in one 4-day week than Fox News presents in a year.

Your statement, Hyeena, is about the funniest thing I've ever read on these pages. I assume your little tag name/label (Ted Tweak) is satirical. If it's not, I think you and Ron Erwin will have a wonderful friendship. You should get to know Elliot as well - and don't forget acadian driftwood - when he gets back from the Far East.

my sentiments exactly, GW

GW said:

I couldn't agree more, GW. And, those 5 w words better report a rainbow of all the real news, not just news that is of one hue of the political/economic spectrum.