I don’t know how many times I’ve heard the name Shirley Sherrod in the last 48 hours. I think what happened to her just shows it’s all become a free-for-all, people spitting out whatever bullshit they want because they have internet connection. Myself included, the only difference is that nobody reads what I write and the things I write about cannot cause anybody to get fired. Perhaps only myself.
Look, I’m not in news and don’t intend to be, but isn’t checking your facts the first thing you should be doing before getting something on the air? What this guy Breitbart did to support his talking points was deceiving, but what the other guys did was stupid because they reported the video as “news” and even more stupid was rushing into conclusions and firing the woman. If I read War of the Worlds again on the radio, will people believe the Earth is being invaded?
At the same time many people still believe that the so-called news organisations do their job and report evidence and not talking points, that they check their facts before making allegations against somebody or doing something media isn’t supposed to do which is accusing/judging/condemning. But unfortunately reporting facts is the last thing people do in the media nowadays, and being hammered every day, every hour with political agenda, some doing it more subtly, some doing it blatantly, can really mess up with your mind and we should “refudiate” that. What’s the most effective way to get people to hum tunes of annoying songs? Play them 50 times throughout the course of the day… I know my limit when Fox News starts sounding plausible…
I guess nowadays it is just hard to find trustworthy news sources, at least sources that are widely available to the public.
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It’s been a long week of hard work and different from the other weeks this one won’t finish tomorrow. I stupidly volunteered to teach this workshop on Podcasts, meant to be worked with adults, but now I have two teenagers attending the class. I guess the person who came up with the idea of Saturday workshops during vacation knows as much about adult students of English as Beck knows about journalism.
Well, I can live with that, especially because another teacher is supposed to help me out, so the pressure won’t be on me entirely. What pissed me off, though, is that I only found out about the teenagers because I decided to ask how many people would turn up. “Oh, by the way, they’re teenagers…” Excellent, not only did I have to throw away everything I had prepared, I also had to research possible subjects for the programme and reorganise everything.
And, oh, the distance classes project! I honestly haven’t slept well in the last few days thinking about it and as the time approaches I get more nervous and certain that this one I’ll screw up big time!
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TEDTalks with one more Portuguese translation available. This talk shows investment banker Euvin Naidoo on forgetting about we constantly hear about Africa and investing in the continent. Translation by Leandro Cianconi and reviewed by me! Available here.
-- Never too many beers -- 