Sometimes, I really hate the media
February 29, 2008
That’s hard for me to say … that I hate the media.
I’m a member of it. It is my profession and defines who I am. I’m a story teller, a journalist.
As a member of the media, I have a duty to tell others what is going on.
With freedom of the press comes great responsibility. It is far from a true freedom.
You have to back up what you say. There needs to be solid evidence for what is reported as fact.
A journalist also has to answer to the community. Sometimes, for the greater good, things go unsaid.
The journalists in the UK did it over the last couple of months. But leave it to the foreign media (mostly us in the U.S.) to screw things up.
http://www.wisn.com/news/15438567/detail.html
Read the report linked here on Prince Harry.
The UK press got it right. The rest of the media … well, way to go, pat yourselves on the back.
Idiots.
Five years ago … and where are we now?
February 26, 2008
Kenny Mays
WISN 12 News’ Mike Anderson and I had a conversation yesterday about our neighborhoods.
He was working on a story, following up on the children convicted of beating a man to his death five years ago.
What he found then - a lack of parent supervison, lack of watching out for each other, a lack of respect - still plagues our community.
Have a listen to our conversation here:
After some sleep …
February 21, 2008
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, I monitored the Hawaii Presidential Primary. The results, which WISN.com provided on billboards around the city, were pretty much as expected. Obama and McCain the leaders.
It isn’t like Hawaii has a huge number of delegates, so it wasn’t as much of a battleground as Wisconsin was. Then again, we didn’t get the “full” treatment either … at least according to Hillary’s campaign.
Ohio and Texas are the next two states the candidates are going after.
I think, and I’m certainly not the first to report this, we’ll know the two candidates right after those primaries.
The parties need the time to stage the conventions, to kick-off the national campaign with the team in place and to keep the momentum going until November.
I’m now well rested after catching up on sleep yesterday. Locally, we’ll start seeing more attention paid to the Supreme Court and other local races.
Oh yea, as a part of my mental relaxation, I’m catching up on the new “Dancing With The Stars” people on Oprah at 4 p.m. today. I think it will be easier picking a winner there than it will be with this presidential race.
You never know
February 20, 2008
Candidates enter the race, not certain if they will strike the right chord with voters.
For news directors, producers, reporters, photographers, engineers and everyone else in mass media … it is the same thing.
Each starts out with a blank piece of paper and the ideas start to form. Soon there’s a plan and you do your best to follow it.
Our participants in the Student Commitment 2008 project did it too. They covered the election live with updates in a stream at WISN.com.
They reported stories, put together plans and in the end, they had to adjust, be nimble to pull off the task of giving our Web readers and viewers two hours of ongoing coverage without any breaks. You find me another Web site that did that for a primary election.
Kudos goes to all at the station that went out of their way to make it happen. Kudos also go to the UW-Milwaukee and Marquette students and their advisors. They are dedicated professionals, each of them. It was a pleasure watching them try something never done before.
If you missed the stream, you’ll be able to see the students’ work. Over the next few days, we’ll get the videos posted on the student commitment page here. Check it out:
Obama vs. McCain
February 19, 2008
As part of WISN’s Student Commitment 2008 project, Marquette graduate student Bret Ratner is blogging for the Wisconsin Primary. Here’s another post from Bret: ———— With 79% of the vote in, it appears Obama will win Wisconsin by 17%, 58-41. What’s next for the Clinton campaign? Texas and Ohio are in two weeks, meaning that Clinton has two weeks to try and change the current trends, which strongly favor Obama. In Texas, she will have to shore up the Latino vote and try to win back the blue collar vote, since early polls indicate that she is currently trailing Obama
with the African American vote. In Ohio, a state made up largely of blue collar workers, she is going to have to hammer Obama on heathcare, the economy, and loss of jobs overseas. These are the keys in Ohio, and if Clinton has any chance left to salvage the Democratic nomination, she is going to have to win both states and win big. As I previously posted, do not count her out yet. Stranger things have happened, and lord knows, she will not go down without a fight. That being said, if I was a betting man, right now I would wager on an Obama-McCain general election. For WISN.com, I’m Bret Ratner. Good night and Good Luck!
The Blue Collar Vote
February 19, 2008
As part of WISN’s Student Commitment 2008 project, Marquette graduate student Bret Ratner is blogging for the Wisconsin Primary. Here’s another post from Bret: ———— Just read an interesting article on slate.com, which claims that exit polls in Wisconsin show that Obama won the working class vote of people who make under $50,000 a year. This is a noteworthy development. Obama has already been making inroads into Clintons other base, white women, and now he has made a serious dent into the blue collar vote. My guess is that when all is said and done, the Clinton machine will spin the loss of the blue collar vote as a narrow victory (the numbers are very close) but it does not matter. The simple fact that he is this close means that her once vaunted coalition is shrinking by the minute.
Sheer Numbers
February 19, 2008
As part of WISN’s Student Commitment 2008 project, Marquette graduate student Bret Ratner is blogging for the Wisconsin Primary. Here’s another post from Bret: ———— Forget for a second who won the Democratic and Republican Wisconsin Primaries. While the winners are important, they only tell half the story. What is more interesting to look at is how many people voted in each primary. With 57% of the vote in, about 568,000 people voted in the Democratc Primary, compared to only 207,000 in the Republican Primary. Think about it for a second; that is a difference of 361,000 voters. This bodes quite well for Democrats come November, where no matter who the nominee is, (s)he should have a huge advantage. It seems like the failures of the current administration have galvanized the Democratic base to turn out and vote in record setting numbers. As the old expression goes, the proof is in the pudding.
The Comeback Kid
February 19, 2008
As part of WISN’s Student Commitment 2008 project, Marquette graduate student Bret Ratner is blogging for the Wisconsin Primary. Here’s another post from Bret: ———— With 39% of the vote in, Obama leads Clinton 56%-43%. The news keeps going from bad to worse for Clinton, since she was only down 11% a little while ago. However, and I cannot stress this enough, DO NOT COUNT CLINTON OUT! She was left for dead after Iowa, was way down in the polls in New Hampshire, and what happened? She won New Hampshire, won Nevada, and next thing you knew, Clinton was the favorite. I am not saying these two times are similar. All I am syaing is they do not call Bill Clinton (and by extension Hillary Clinton) the comeback kid for nothing …
As part of WISN’s Student Commitment 2008 project, Marquette graduate student Bret Ratner is blogging for the Wisconsin Primary. Here’s another post from Bret: ———— Right now, the numbers show Obama won Wisconsin 55% to 44 %, a margain of victory of 11%. Before the primary, it had been noted that in order for Clinton to claim a moral victory, she would have to come within five percentage points of Obama. That way, she could say that while she had been projected to lose badly, she fought a close race and come Texas and Ohio, things would be different. Losing by 11 percentage points changes things. She lost bad, blown out one could say, and all this will is continue Obama-mania. All in all, a bad day for the Clinton campaign.
Independent Voters
February 19, 2008
As part of WISN’s Student Commitment 2008 project, Marquette graduate student Bret Ratner is blogging for the Wisconsin Primary. Here’s another post from Bret: ———— According to ABC News, exit polls showed that while Clinton and Obama ran almost even among Democratic voters, independents came out strongly for Obama. This seems to be the case in every state, where Obama is able to crossover and snare independents while Clinton lags far behind. Come November, this crossover appeal will help the Democratic party (assuming Obama gets the nomination) because he will be able to win voters Clinton never would. All this does is enhance the arguement that Obama is more electable in a general election, and in the end, that is all a true Democrat cares about; taking the White House back!
