Sgt. Satchel's Lonely Hearts Club Blog

Popcorn: There for the Crowds or the Cash? A Response to "Movie Theater Immersion" Marjorie made a post  about how she believes that food common at movie theaters is part of the immersive experience that draws people to the theaters today. While I agree on some points she makes, I would largely disagree in this more lighthearted dispute.  In her post, Marjorie acknowledges that one can get many movie theater snacks at home. She counters that you just can't get the same experience from snacks at home. While it is true that you can't get the exact recipe of popcorn at home, you also have many more options at home. You can go to the grocery and get whatever type of snack you want, whereas you are limited to a select few options at the theater.  The immersive experience of a movie theater refers to how one feels surrounded by a movie and focuses his or her attention exclusively on the film. Snacks do the opposite of that by focusing attention on taste and...

A General Review of WDRB From my time watching WDRB while doing this blog, I have mixed reviews. It isn't perfect and doesn't strictly adhere to the somewhat utopian yardsticks and guidelines, but most of its stories are relevant and from looking at the early data our class has gathered, it appears to be the best local news station we've got. WDRB has a fair mixture of populist and elitist stories. The ever-chastised sports stories are limited to only about three short stories at the last three to four minutes of each half-hour broadcast. While crime stories are sometimes a large part of the show, there are usually important stories mixed in. WDRB always has two weather stories per broadcast, which seems a reasonable number considering that weather directly affects the lives of every viewer, but time is very limited in a thirty minute broadcast with ten or so minutes of ads. I've been impressed by many of WDRB's stories on social issues and government program...

We Forward in this Generation Triumphantly A Response to Isabella Bonilla's  "A Reflection Of the Past 72 Hours" The past few weeks, months and years have looked bleak for the grand arc of human triumph over tribalism. From Brexit to Bolsonaro, rifts between groups of people have become evident if not enlarged.  Isabella responded to  a class discussion on hate crimes committed in recent days with an eloquently worded piece. (Yes I realise I have already responded to one of Isabella's posts, but they are thoughtful and not too many posts for this continuation have been made yet). In it she makes many points about the media's role in covering a tragedy. She also points out that the internet, the modern marvel it is, has a rampant problem with disinformation and promoting radicalizing echo chambers. I agree in many regards that the internet and social media are not beneficial to the state of public discourse. I don't have any social media because I ...

Be Best Running newsworthy stories is a critical part of being an esteemed news organization. But not only should organizations run newsworthy stories, they should run the most important and impactful stories of the hour.  Christeen posted a blog entry  in which she laments that three local news station's websites all had the same top story. The stories were all about early details from the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre. While I agree that any one news website should air diverse stories in the absence of an all out catastrophic event for our community or country, I think each site that ran that story as their top one made the right decision. The four news stations in Louisville don't collaborate to give viewers that check every website the best experience, they individually pick the story that at any given time will impact the most readers for the longest amount of time. (Or sometimes the one that will get the most clicks.) Most Louisvillians that want to be informed che...

Drop by Drop Upon the Heart A response to a class discussion on recent hate crimes   Hate is not the thing with feathers.  It is not natural, it is not innate to anyone. It is learned, which is what is most frightening about the three heinous hate crimes that rocked the U.S. in the past three days. In our own hometown a man shot and killed two black people at a Kroger in a racially motivated attack. The man that mailed pipe bombs in an attempt to assassinate a former president, a presidential nominee, a former attorney general, a billionaire and members of a news organization was captured. A man shot and killed eleven Jews in a synagogue.  Many have come to the consensus over the past three days of hatred and gradually over the past couple of years that some newfound hatred is gripping America. It can certainly feel that way. There is evidence that hate crimes are on the rise. That is startling. Not to copy Franklin Roosevelt, but the scariest thing from this m...

In Defense of WDRB Local news is inherently flawed. Local news is often incapable of living up to national expectations on a low budget and local audience. Evie published a post  that had some harsh words for WDRB today. In it, she berates the local news station for airing too many stories about social issues or human interest, and for publishing too many sports stories online. The way she sees it, WDRB sacrifices being able to do in depth coverage on specific stories in exchange for more time for populist stories. While I agree with her in some points, I fundamentally disagree with her opinions on what constitutes a relevant and important story.  Evie states that on a recent broadcast "there were nine stories that fit under the category of social issues and human interests, but their were zero stories on politics and government, and only one story on accidents and disasters" to support her point that WDRB is airing too many irrelevant stories. While I do see it as s...

Not with a Bang but a Trickle The history of mass communication has inevitably become intertwined with the history of technology at large. When learning the history our lessons usually start with the advent of a new invention. Lessons have started with the metal moveable type printing press, the phonograph, and the camera. On the surface, the picture some lectures paint is that history has hinged on critical individuals and that broader social phenomenon have been propagated by the "great men" of history. This posit is based on discussions from multiple classes, but the idea came back me because of the discussions about music and sound recording technologies.  I have multiple problems with the aforementioned implications of some lectures. When our class learned about music, it all started with Thomas Edison. We learned about his phonograph, and Berliner's gramophone and then all of modern musical history as if these late 19th century inventions kickstarted an imm...

All the Facts On the 6 o'clock news on Monday WDRB aired a story that was not well researched or well reported. There are plenty of stories like that that are aired, but this was the lead story on the 6 P.M. broadcast. All the details on the story viewers were given was that there was an incident that might have involved gunshots in an apartment complex and that the police had showed up. The reporter added that no ambulance had shown up at the time it was reported.  Not only is this a meaningless, fear-mongering story, but WDRB made it the lead story of the broadcast. They thought that a possible incident that may or may not have involved gunshots was the most important thing for Louisvillians to know. They didn't wait to air the story until they had more details than "something happened!". They aired this hollow nothingness and tried to make it have the semblance of a news story. They said they would come back to the story if they got any more details, but why...