To Their Right Praise, and True Perfection!

To look back in the not too distant future of media and compare it with its present state can be very disheartening.

Looking at famous journalist such as Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Peter Jennings and even more recently Tom Brokaw it is hard to fully comprehend the media's fall from grace.

According to a 2003 USA Today article, "Trust in the media has dropped from 54% in mid-1989 — about the time of the fall of communism — to a low of 32% in December 2000, during the post-election confusion over George W. Bush and Al Gore."

However, a lot of this can be chalked up to the commercialization, sensationalized, subjectivity of the present state of the news; as pointed at quite aptly my Farhad Manjoo in his book True Enough.

According to Manjoo the overuse of terms such as "breaking news" have essentially created a boy who cried wolf scenario. As a result the news is harder and harder to believe.

This is perhaps chiefly because in the world of 24-hour news coverage there is a constant power struggle between networks to have higher ratings, so any new detail must be sensationalized to draw viewership away from the increasingly sedated American audience.

This competition has lead cable news to become more entertainment and speculation in stead of just the news and straight facts. As a result commentators such as Bill O'Reilly, Glen Beck and Keith Olbermann have very successful shows and because the networks are always competing for first; the cycle is perpetuated.

Cable news has seemingly become a competition of who can be the loudest, most brash and best showman or woman. Naturally you can see the type of problem this creates with the public when this type of programming is presented as news on an "all news" network. As Stephen Colbert aptly put, "it's now what you say, but how loud you say it."

As a result and somewhat due to the hostile media effect less and less people believe that the media is unbiased and being truthful. The hostile media effect is a psychological effect where the media has become so untrusted and the consumers so staunch that anything is perceived as going against each individual. For example a democrat and a republican can watch the same segment of news and each will perceive it as hostile to their party or ideology.

To quote Manjoo: "On the left now, just as on the right, people believe the press is out to get them...Republicans and Democrats each claim to see some media sources as routinely favoring the other side."

As a result more than half of the country views the media as either too liberal or too conservative with a minority of people thinking the coverage is where it's supposed to be. The 24-hour news stations have seemingly become more polarized and anything in the middle seems foreign to the niche in viewers that they have created. "If I see the world as all black an you see the world as all white, and some person comes along and says it's partially black and partially white, we both are going to be unhappy."

This is illustrated here (which for some reason wont copy as a picture)

This sort of thinking is perpetuated by the idea that, "both sides think the other side is just being strategic." This stems from the belief of each party believing they are the only reasonable option. Accordingly everyone else who is reasonable must arrive at the same conclusion and anyone who arrives somewhere else is clearly unreasonable.

This fallacy in logic unfortunately is prevalent in most if not all conflict. Everyone takes this stance at one point or another Manjoo and myself included. When Manjoo questions the sincerity of people like Lou Dobbs and Anne Coulter when they say the things they say. The normal vitriol that often finds its way coming from Coulter and Dobbs mouths generally I find questionable at not. However, questioning their sincerity implies that you know better and your way is the only reasonable way. It is an odd situation though as I actually do agree with Manjoo on this in particular.

The counter to this argument is that personalities like the aforementioned are clearly labeled as being on opinion shows, not news shows. Paraphrasing Bill O'Reilly from a recent interview with Jon Stewart, said that anyone who didn't know his show was opinion was a pinhead. However, I am not sure it is as common knowledge as Mr. O'Reilly believes.

All this confusion and mistrust has resulted in Jon Stewart, a comedian whose show is self-titled fake news, to become one of the most trusted names in news. According to a recent poll on Time.com Stewart beat out fellow anchors, Katie Couric, Brian Williams and Charlie Gibson.

I am a Jon Stewart fan, and this is disturbing. That being said reading True Enough was a strange sort of vindication, because I had grown so frustrated with the state of news that I was starting to think it was only me. So reading someone who had noticed the same things I had and felt as frustrated was relieving.

No, Sir, I Do Not Bite My Thumb At You Sir; But I Bite My Thumb, Sir.

Alfred L. Gordon was a 52-year-old Orlando Police Department veteran with almost 30 years of experience. That was until the night of Thursday October 4, 2007 when he was shot and killed during a botched ATM robbery.

Gordon was withdrawing money from an ATM on the corner of Silver Star and North Hiawassee roads in Pine Hills (colloquially known as Crime Hills) , a suburb of west Orlando. When he was approached and later killed by South Florida teens: Davin Smith, 19 (at the time) and Hugo Terry, 18 (at the time).

What made the trial of Davin Smith, which is the trial I attended, even more interesting was that formal boy band mogul Lou Pearlman testified against Smith. Pearlman, who is currently serving a 25 year sentence for bank and wire fraud, testified that while in prison Smith had bragged that he had killed a police officer.

While in court there was a very interesting witness who unfortunately I was not able to get the name of, because I arrived after he had been called to the stand. He was an interesting witness, because he had been called to basically echo the sentiments of Lou Pearlman, saying he had heard Smith brag about killing a police officer. However, unlike Pearlman this witness, apparently had a history of “snitching,” on other inmates. Accordingly the defense tried to show that he just wanted attention and a day out of prison. The inmate did not help himself by talking back to the defense and coming off as more of a trouble making blow hard than a viable witness.


Another interesting fact about the trial was that you were able to see some of Gordon's last moments as there was a security camera mounted above the ATM. This piece of evidence was of vital importance to the prosecution, but there was a certain degree of difficulty in getting the surveillance video to work. While it was never quite clear what exactly the hold up was the delay lasted some 40 minutes.

Towards the end of the trial the jury did not take long to find Smith guilty and recommend a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Another interesting fact I learned and perhaps less to do with the trial itself was that there was only one camera allowed in the courtroom at a time. During this particular case Channel 9 WFLA the Orlando ABC affiliate was on duty. After the case adjourns for the day the other local news stations can request the tape from the trial so they can run it on their news.

Too Early Seen Unknown, and Known Too Late

There is one huge hole in the proposed plan to widen Bruce B. Downs Boulevard into either a 6 or 8 lane road. That problem is that this $50 million+ expansion of Bruce B. Downs is hinging on the passing of either a Light Rail system or at the very least another route for the Hartline bus services.

As the Hillsborough County Department of Public Works puts it, "Should the reconstruction of Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, between Bearss Avenue and Palm Springs Boulevard, scheduled for 2011, widen the existing 4-lane road to 8 lanes as currently designed or widen to 6 lanes and preserve more space for future rapid transit?"

The cost of construction on the 6 lane road totals $52 million and the 8 lane road totals $55 million. Accounting for a $3 million difference.

However, the problem with merely widening the road is that if the road is widened to 6-lanes it will fail by 2012. This is particularly problematic when the estimated completion date would be between 2013 and 2014. The forecast is a little better for an 8-lane road which would not fail until 2025.

That being said that's still $55 million down the drain to last a little more than 10 years. That is why the Hillsborough County Department of Public Works is pushing for a Light Rail track to alleviate congestion and further accommodate the growing population of the North Tampa and Tampa Palms area.

The thought process of course being while you cannot keep widening Bruce B. Downs to suit the traffic you can keep adding cars to the Light Rail trains.

The Public Works department is pushing for a swift decision in order to avoid delays to the road project.

The planned Light Rail could be constructed as early as 2018 if:
-Planning, Environmental, and Engineering Studies support Rail on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard in first phase of construction.
-Transportation Referendum on 1% sales tax is placed on the November ballot
and passes by popular vote.
-Federal matching grants are obtained as/if needed.

If the Light Rail fails to pass the options are limited to either a Hartline or simply wider road. An idea which most do not seem particularly fond of due to the still present congestion and in the case of simply widening the road, imminent failure.

Seen below is Plan One with the Light Rail running in between the two directions of traffic.











Below are links to helpful websites to learn more about the proposed road:
A slide-show presentation of the proposal.
The Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization.