Kennedy Center Lecture

Today's Kennedy Center Lecture was interesting. Diana Douglas, a former BYU student and now a head editor for NPR talked about reporting from Iraq. She talked a lot about working with the natives and getting upset when people accused her of just reporting the bad stories, when she just wanted to capture the listeners attention however she could with a war that people were sick of listening to. Just as a side note, I do think it is kind of dumb to blame media for reporting bias. They just report what people will watch and try to make it honest and professional. But they're a business, they shift to the need of the customers just like any other business. It's a cop out to blame "the mainstream media" for skewing peoples views. Its peoples skewed views that bend the media. Change the people, not the media.

Beyond the actual discussion of reporting though, it was interesting to watch Cory Leonard try to corral her quietly as she had an intense tendency to wander away from the podium and the microphone. I can understand wandering, because it was a small room where everyone could hear easily, but Corey makes a big deal out of filming and recording lectures, and she was obviously making it tough on him. And she said, referring to reporters strategy of riding with soldiers to get their perspective, or "embedding" she said: "The soldiers love to have reporters embed with them." But even the old man next to me laughed because it sounded like she said "The soldiers love to have reporters in bed with them." There's probably some truth to both statements.

And I think we need to nationalize some banks, temporarily. Just thought I'd throw that in. It's not socialist, its smart.