MMMM # 99 - Internet Dumbing Down etc etc

The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus has hit the nail on the head in her column about the dumbing down of the world caused by the Internet....but the process started a long time ago, way before the net existed. While you might argue that Cliff Notes was the origin, I would say it was the arrival of consultants who dumbed down much of TV News to the point where "sound bites" now average :07 in length.

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ALSO: The reporter becomes the news: Eileen Jones, a long-time reporter at the NBC affiliate here in Montgomery was charged with a felony last week at the scene of a story when she allegedly ran over a police officer's foot and refused his order to stop driving. Is it a story? Uh, yea, as it would be had it been any other public figure. So it was reported in the Montgomery Advertiser (link above) and on our news at CBS-8 too. And yes, there was a report on WSFA's site, though they didn't use her mug shot.

WSFA itself isn't commenting, saying it's a confidential station matter. Now just what would reporter Eileen say to some official who fed her a line like that?
Right.
Good luck to her..I hope it all works out. She's always been very nice to me.
And by way of advice...my lawyer many, many years ago told me this: do whatever the officer says. We'll fight it later in court.

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AND FURTHERMORE: We may have hit a new low, or it happened sometime ago and I'm just now noticing it, but a Washington Post article includes quotes from anonymous readers of British newspapers....the kind of comments you can read these days in any paper anywhere. Great technique...it allows a writer to pick and choose comments by anonymous writers to make his or her point in the article.