Thursday, January 01, 2009

News You Can Use

I get my local news from the Tampa FOX affilliate and the websites of the two local papers.

Sometimes the local media treats it's viewers like idiots. Today the minimum wage in Florida went up $0.42. In the clip reporting this, I saw an unidentified man (in front of an Associated Press sign) the reasons this was needed: Florida is high in job losses and home forclosures.

Home forclosures? Yeah, now that I'm earning $7.21 per hour I can make that mortgage payment. And maybe someone more economically smarter than I can explain how raising the minimum wage will increase jobs?

Kwanzaa was ignored. Completely ignored.

The homeless were covered with less inaccuracy. This was a source of frustration for me because I live in the hood, and the coverage of the homeless would be in stark contradiction to the witness of my own eyes.

Instead of covering the activists who were humping the homeless for fame and fortune, the focus was on the needs of organizations like Catholic Charities and Metropolitan Ministries who actually feed and shelter these people.

And instead of crawling over 100 winos and crack whores to find a nice white homeless family, they occasionally reported that a few of these folks may have drug and alcohol problems.

Do you think that the loss of reader/viewers has motivated the local Tampa media to quit lying about this issue?

My writing's a little disjointed. I have football to watch and a chicken to bake.


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