The unique perspective and provocative opinions of Joe O’Neill
Media Matters
Given the prominence and ubiquity of 24-7 online and cable news, it’s a challenge for daily newspapers to literally stay in business and come up with high-profile news copy of local interest. It’s why we periodically see front-page, above-the fold, news-judgment calls such as the Tampa Bay Times’ recent “Breaking Barriers” feature about local female spear-fishers. Inspiring? A “sport” that involves shooting spears into fish? Wrestling never seemed so legitimately newsworthy.
“It is enraging to watch a parade of dunderheads preen on cable—anchors and generals and chatterers—the same people whose cheerleading ensnared us in 20 years of quicksand in Iraq and Afghanistan.”—Maureen Dowd, New York Times.
Optics-R-Us: Do we really need hurricane-covering reporters outside holding on to lampposts and their hats to underscore that this is, indeed, a big storm? Aren’t the cones of apocalypse and strewn spaghetti models melodramatic enough?