Multiple levels of truth

It's not simply just the truth anymore.  Farhad Manjoo's book True Enough dances upon the subject of truth in the media.  What is the truth anymore?  Who do we believe?  The news networks?  The Internet?  Can we even believe them anymore? 

Manjoo's book is a series of examples of why there really is no such thing as truth in the media anymore.  My professor deems this book as "very relevant to today's shift in media."  Now what does he mean by that? 

With the drastic change in technology over the recent years, it is incredibly difficult to deem what is true and what isn't.   The Internet makes the playing field even for everyone, making journalists' jobs even harder than they were before.  It does make things easier in terms of finding information fast, but the biggest problem with that advantage is that the credibility of that information is uncertain with the Internet.

Joe Shmoe can write a story and put it on the Internet.  Reporters for the newspaper and TV stations can also write the same story and put it on the Internet.  Naturally, we would read the story from the newspaper or TV station's website before reading Shmoe's story, but what if Shmoe's story contradicts the story the media wrote?  Which one is true?  Joe Shmoe claims he was there but we gravitate to the media's story because they're the professionals, but does that mean they reported the truth?  Or is Shmoe lying?
 Manjoo explains in his book how truth can be altered no matter what way it is reported in the media.  People lie, photos can be photoshopped, video can be edited, people have different sides to the story - all of these are the obstacles and, according to Manjoo, also benefits of not just the journalist, but the journalist's audience, too. 

How can they be both?  Well, it's very simple if you read the book, but I'll break it down for you.  In True Enough, there is an example of each of these obstacles and benefits. 

Photos can be photoshopped.  Manjoo talks about the incident where a photo of an American soldier standing next to a young Iraqi boy that's holding a sign that says "Lcpl Boudreaux killed my dad then knocked up my sister" ends up in an Islamic man's email inbox.  The way Manjoo wrote about this made it sound like it was really true until several pages later he revealed that the picture had been photoshopped.  The sign really said, "Lcpl Boudreaux saved my dad then rescued my sister." 

But during that time I was reading before I read what it was supposed to say, I really thought so lowly of this Boudreaux guy.  I thought he was absolute scum to write the sign and have the little Iraqi boy smile and hold it.  But it was all fake.  Someone photoshopped it and emailed it to the communications director for the civil rights group called Council on American-Islamic Relations.  Needless to say, he was outraged and it caused a big scandal in the media.  But who knows if that was the real picture?  I'll let you decide.  You can see it here.

Video can be edited.  Not only can video be cut up into pieces like it usually is, it can be slowed down and sped up, it can be with or without audio, and just those simple changes can drastically change the message of that video. 

For example, Manjoo talks about his interview with a man that believes that the incident on 9/11 was a conspiracy and swears that the twin towers were hit with missiles instead of the plane.  Manjoo says this guy points out when the video is slowed down and zoomed in, you can see a hint of orange right at the belly of the plane just before it hits the building.  Manjoo doesn't believe him, but that isn't changing that guy's mind.  He will believe it until the day he dies because that is what he sees.  Manjoo says that others have argued that the orange is the reflection of the sun on the plane's belly. 

There's a good bit of Manjoo's book that talks about selective exposure, where we select the messages we consume and avoid the ones that we disagree with.   For example, people with right-wing ideologies might prefer to watch Fox News instead of CNN, or listen to Rush Limbaugh instead of watch Anderson Cooper. 


I think this selective exposure concept is fascinating.  The different types of messages and the way we accept them is even more fascinating.  There is weak and strong dissonance, and there is weak and strong consonance.  Dissonant messages are messages that we don't particularly agree with.  Whether it is strong or weak is determined by its arguability.  If the message is easily proven wrong, it is a weak message.  If the message is supported by facts and evidence, then the message is likely to be considered strong.


Manjoo says "weak dissonance is the engine of cable talk."  I agree wholeheartedly.  He uses Bill O'Reilly's show as an example.  He is not the only show that thrives off of weak consonance.  It's every political show I've seen.  Bill Maher, Anderson Cooper, Rush Linbaugh, Glenn Beck; they all live and breath pointing out their enemy party's mistakes.  It makes them look good and the other guys bad.


In spite of all these ideas on how we view, learn and process the messages we see in the media, it all boils down to whose version of the truth you're going to like the best.  Do you like what Bill Maher says?  Watch his show some more.  Do you think Joe Shmoe was right?  Manjoo predicts that with technology making every form of media more accessible and more available, people are going to watch what they agree with.  We have the choice to do so, and we'll always take advantage of it as long as we have the access to it.

Nothing Like Pink Floyd

Trials are far more boring than I expected.  They weren't calling for them to tear down the wall or anything like that. 

But I got to see a couple of trials done the way they're always done in the real world.  The judge and the commanding presence that comes with him called the courtroom to order, one of the three cops sits down the delinquent, and the other two stand guard. 

Both cases involved violation of probation.  I know a lot of people on probation, too.  It sucks because they can't ever really party with me, but it's not that hard to not violate probation.  One of the men on trial was Lorenzo Rubio.  According to his probation agreement, Rubio is not allowed to drink alcohol or have weapons on him or in his house. 

When the police came to his house (as part of a gang bust operation, the police pick a few random people on probation as well as the listed gang suspects), Rubio smelled of alcohol and had a scuba knife in his house that he claims he uses for fishing. 

Now even if he just uses his knife for fishing, he should know that cops are going to be ass holes about things like that.  Police do not take kindly to people violating probation. 

I remember one of the hoes at work being carried out of the club because she violated probation.  I found her record on the sheriff's office website.  Her bond was $10,000 and she had previously been arrested several times for dealing drugs.  But a $10,000 bond over some stinkin' pills.  I know it's pills that ruin young girls' lives, but she ended up going to prison for a couple of years at least. 

With that in mind, I think how stupid is this Rubio guy?  It's not like the probation officers don't tell their crooks what's going to happen when they violate probation.  He shouldn't have taken his chances keeping a fishing knife in his house.  If I was on probation, you bet your ass I would not take any chances.  I bet he knew that having a knife in his home was risky. 

I didn't stay to see what the ruling was, but I don't really care either way.  I can see how he can be completely innocent and maybe it was just a silly fishing knife.  I mean, seriously?  Was he going to filet his wife?  Of course not.  But he shouldn't be so stupid to end up in court in the first place, so I really wish him the best of luck and all the intelligence in the world. 

Planning Commission Experience

“The Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission is an independent community action agency, led by appointed citizens, which serves all citizens of Hillsborough County by providing a vision for improving the quality of life.”

That’s what one of the big signs on the wall said.

I’ve never been to a planning commission meeting before, so this was a big learning experience. 

This meeting was very formal, very standard, and very intense.  Well, maybe not intense for what was going on, but the people on the planning commission’s board have a lot of homework. 

I had a very hard time figuring out what was going on when they were talking about the comprehensive plans for Plant City.  I was happy to see that they were working on “improving the quality of life” for Plant City, my hometown.  Well, my mom lives there, so Plant City has a bit of importance in my life.

During the public hearing, it seems like you have to have read the plans in detail before voting in favor or against it because I couldn’t have decided on that plan with the amount of time given to the board to vote.  They obviously did their homework and read the plans over and came to a decision. 

There were four comprehensive plans presented at the hearing and the only people to show up to this hearing were the people speaking about the plans.  No regular citizens showed up.

And this meeting is so structured.  The board had copies of their agenda for the public (so I grabbed one).  On the agenda, which they followed, they had a call to order, purpose and order of meeting and roll call.  I thought that was a bit silly but it’s just procedure.  They’re covering themselves.

They had at least four cameras along the top parts of the walls and a small camera on the podium.  There was a producer sitting in a small desk with a laptop switching camera views to the big screens for us to see who was talking.

The way the hearing went was the presenter would give a brief overview of what the plan was, and I still couldn’t quite understand the full impact of it because I didn’t read the whole plan like the board members did. 

After the presenter refreshes the board on what the plan will do, the presenter opens the floor to the board to ask the presenter any questions.  After the board asks questions they open up the floor to the public for questions.  Once they finish questions they vote on it. 

The board unanimously voted for each plan. 

I think for the next time, if I were ever to go to a planning commission meeting, I would do my homework.  The agendas are printed in advance to let the public know what the board will be voting on. 

To start, I would look up the comprehensive plan amendments.  The codes of the plan amendments are printed on the agenda so they are easier to find.  For example, the meeting I attended discussed four Plant City comprehensive plan amendments, two were map amendments and two were text amendments. 

One of the codes was displayed as:

PLANT CITY: COMPREHENSIVE PLAN AMENDMENT PC/CPA 10-01 – MAP AMENDMENT (ALABAMA AND HITCHCOCK STREETS)

So I would go to the planning commission’s website at theplanningcommission.org and look for PC/CPA 10-01 to read it.  And to make it easy for you, I found the page for it here.

 Overall, I learned a lot about board meetings.  I learned that hardly any citizens show up for them (it seems), the board makes frequent decisions on what to do with the millions of dollars in budget money, records it, actively asks the public (if they show up) what it thinks, and casts the vote. 

I also learned that I need to do my homework, as always.

Trigg strikes back!

Preston Trigg came to see us again today.  He gave a quick rundown on how to read a budget.  It was surprising to see how fast I learned in that hour. 

He made it clear that a budget is really quite simple, not as complicated as it may look.  He told us a budget is simply money in and money out.  He even stressed his quote from his last visit, "follow the money."  Since it's very important for a reporter to understand a budget, we kept that simple lesson in our head that it's really just money in and money out.  All the rest falls into place.

Well, at least it should.  So if it isn't falling into place, that's where we journalists come in. 

Trigg reassured us that the law requires every government agency to have a public budget.  Private businesses don't have to make their budgets public, though. 

We also learned that it's okay to ask the budget officials questions if something is unclear to us.  Trigg said budget officials are often a journalist's best ally if the journalist stays on their good side. 

Trigg also said that the summary (at the top of the budget) may make it easier to see the big things to look for but the summaries only contain what they want us to see.  They may leave some big (perhaps unpopular) changes out of that summary that could affect a lot of people. 

Other than that, a budget is pretty cut and dry.  The thing journalists need to look for is the major increases and decreases from the previous fiscal year (that I learned starts from Oct. 1 and ends Sept. 30). 

Election Day 2010

I can't believe how much I actually paid attention to the election!  I'm so proud of myself for checking news websites and learning more about politics.

This video from The Associated Press is a very helpful guide to this past election.  If you missed something in the news around the nation, this video will tell you what elections were hot.

So it all started when I decided to go vote around 6 p.m. yesterday.  Now, why would I wait that long to decide to just vote?  Well, I just couldn't decide who to vote for.  I didn't like any of the gubernatorial candidates.  I liked Charlie Crist, though.  Even though I'm a registered republican, I liked what Crist said in his campaign messages.

I rode, fighting traffic for 30 minutes on a 20 minute ride to the polls, (and Plant City drivers are MEAN!) got off my motorcycle and walked inside the church where the precinct was set up.  The nice lady standing at the door said I could drop off my stuff and she'd watch it for me.  She was referring to my stuff as my backpack and helmet.  It was a good 25 pounds off my shoulders.

One thing I didn't like was the line.  I always seem to get stuck behind the ones that always have a huge problem that takes forever.  So I stood in line for a good 8 minutes waiting on this stupid bitch.  The lady finally moves on and the woman at the table takes my ID and checks it.  I forgot my address had changed since I was using my mom's address, so while she's checking that, I'm thinking, "omg hurry up."  

She finally gave me the ballot and I went behind the little cardboard props to fill it out.  I read every question and voted as best as I could for the right person.  That was what took me so long to vote. 

I then put the ballot into the machine, which gets better every year.  I think it's so funny that ten years ago, Florida was the retard of the nation with figuring out the ballots.  I once saw a picture of the ballot and saw how confusing it was.  How stupid of Florida's ballot designers.  They should know that Florida is the land of stupid drivers, including stupid voters!  Anyway, I'm glad to see that the technology is improving in Florida, good for this state!

I then left the polls to go see my mom and chat with her, then I went back home and logged on my computer to see the election results.  I probably wouldn't have done this if I didn't vote.  Even though I could care less who becomes governor, I also forgot that I was voting for more than just the governor.  I was voting to change laws and commissioners' jobs. 

I'm glad I voted, even though I'm not happy with the outcome of this election.  I think the republicans need to get their heads out of their asses and just do what the people ask them to do.  And to stop lying, it's really annoying.

Trip to the Medical Examiner’s Office

I got to visit the Medical Examiner’s Office.  That place is the source of death records and other evidence if you get there in time.  I say that because after ten days, claimed bodies get cremated.

I’ll just get right to it and say it now.  I saw a corpse after its autopsy.  The head and chest was cut wide open.  The brains and the chest organs were gone.  It was incredibly disgusting.  Many of my classmates said the body looked fake, but that was a real corpse.  In the flesh… lol the ripped open flesh. 

The more exciting part of this trip was definitely the morgue and the toxicology lab.  The more important part of the trip would probably be in the records room, which was coincidentally room 119.  Each file is color-coded by cause of death.  I thought that was pretty neat.  I think the homicide victims had a red tab on the folder, yellow was suicide, etc.  There were others but I don’t remember which color went to what type of death.

When we visited the toxicology lab where they test to see how someone died, there wasn’t really anything going on.  I just saw a lot of big, high-tech machines built to test the flesh.  I even heard that the lab has small amounts of every drug, including the illegal ones.  The drugs are only there to test the overdose corpses to see what kind of drug it died from.

The juicy part of the trip was obviously the morgue.  We got to see a dead body, yay.  My class was stoked to see it.  I’ve heard this advice in just about every journalism course I’ve taken and it goes along the lines of, “You’re gonna see a lot of blood.  You better have a stomach for it.”

I was very proud of all my classmates.  Only one was about to throw up after being in the morgue but it wasn’t at the sight of the corpse but it was the smell of what I like to call the “meat cooler.”  After we saw the corpse a bunch of classmates wanted to see where the rest of the dead bodies are kept.  I thought it wasn’t necessary.  We just saw an explicitly grotesque corpse with its chest cut wide open.  But we humans, are never satisfied. 

I was still staring at the corpse when the rest of the class went over to the meat cooler.  As soon as they opened the door, the smell of death just filled the room.  Ugh, it was so nasty.  It smelled like rotten chicken that has been in the trash for days (I’ll never make that mistake again).  It just stunk!  I decided not to go into the cooler because I wasn’t that desperate to see a whole bunch of dead bodies.  The smell was so pungent I just walked out of the morgue without the rest of the class along with another student covering his mouth and nose obviously about to toss his cookies.  I’ve been having some bad morning sickness (no, I’m not pregnant) over the past week and I just didn’t want to take any chances with my weak stomach.  I hope the poor guy didn’t throw up, though. 

The lesson I learned is obviously I need to have a strong stomach as a journalist and if I wanna know more about how a person died, I have to go to the Medical Examiner’s Office.

Public Meeting

I went to a county public meeting concerning the future construction on Dale Mabry Highway.

County meetings are always so plain and simple.  They hold these meetings to ask the public what they think on an issue.  The sad part is that only a handful of citizens attend these meetings.  I would say only about 50 people showed up to this meeting that pertained to much more than that.

At the meeting, the county proposed spending a total of $4.8 million on improving the Dale Mabry intersections at Lakeview Drive and Northdale Boulevard.  So the county is going to spend all those tax monies on construction.  This meeting is their way of showing the public they really do care about what their citizens think.

The county played a video explaining the construction options in a very simple and clear way.  There were four different ways to rebuild the Lakeview Drive intersection and three different ways to fix up Northdale Boulevard.

In the video, there were maps and lots of labels and color coding explaining how the end result of each project should be.  I thought it was a really good way to explain what the county is considering how to spend those tax dollars.

After the video, we got to look at the maps closer to refresh our memories on the specifics, but there wasn’t really much more to the meeting after that.

On the way out, we were on Northdale Boulevard getting ready to turn onto Dale Mabry: the exact location of the future construction project.  There was a sign announcing this public meeting.  It read something along the lines of “public meeting at 6:30 Oct. 26.”

What struck me about that sign is that the people that ride through this intersection dealing with bad traffic knew about this meeting and are the ones affected by this the most.  I don’t find myself in Carrollwood much but I still showed up to this meeting to witness how the county wants to spend $4.8 million of our tax dollars.  The commuters that travel through this intersection are also the people that would best know how to improve the intersection and would be most effective in making the right choice.