bmoritz

Or how I ruined journalism.

Since most of my readers (and by that I mean all of them) are journalism types at St. Bonaventure, here's a link to my other blog, where I write about the Olean Times Herald's new pay wall.

http://wp.me/pPtIO-D

On my other blog, I take issue with the guy who said that the reason Michael Vick was named the most hated man in sports is the fact that he's black.

Check it out, if you're so inclined.

I'm not giving up this blog totally, but I've started a new one more that (I hope) will focus on my areas of research.

I give you ... Sports Media Guy

Driving home from school tonight, "What is Life" by George Harrison came up on my iPod's shuffle. Singing along, I had a bit of an epiphany.

George Harrison may be my favorite Beatle.

It seems almost sacrilege to say such a thing. To have someone other than Paul or John be your favorite Beatle ... well, that's kind of like saying Donner is your favorite of Santa's reindeer. But the more I listen to Beatles music and their post-Beatles solo stuff, the more I'm drawn to Harrison.

One of the weird things about saying that is it can be construed as a slam on the other guys. It's probably a byproduct of our Internet, message board culture. You can't just say you like one guy. The other guy has to suck, or be completely overrated, etc. We're a communications culture of extreme opinions these days.

Let's be clear: George Harrison was the third best songwriter in the Beatles. No comparison. Lennon and McCartney are the best. They're accurately rated, to use Chuck Klosterman's great term. But we're not talking greatness, we're talking personal preference.

To me, Lennon's the guy you love in college, and McCartney's the guy you love as you grow up. Lennon's got all the angst and anger and snark you have when you're in college or in your young 20s. You've got all the answers, all the attitude. You're gonna change the world. McCartney's the guy you become in your 30s. You realize that silly love songs aren't such a bad thing.

I'm torn on Lennon. On one hand, I love his angst, anger and snark. I'm not one to use rock lyrics as meaningful poetry, but I do believe "Who on earth do you think you are? A superstar? Well right you are!" is pretty good advice for life. On the other hand, I feel like he was an insufferable dick for no real reason. I feel like his reputation benefited from his death, because he never got to make a really crappy record, never made any racist remarks about hip-hop. He's frozen in time as the guy we want to remember (much like Kurt Cobain). And I believe I'm the only person in the world who hates "Imagine."

(I don't mean I'm sick of it because it's over played. I hate that song. Hate it. Think it's saccharine, sentimental crap. And, as I believe Elvis Costello wrote, it was a multi-millionaire singing imagine no possessions).

McCartney ... I have no real feeling for. Of course, his songs are wonderful, and he seems like a pretty cool dude. He's the guy who has been the coolest guy in whatever room he's walked in to since 1963 and seems pretty together. On the other hand, there's something about him that keeps me at a distance. Probably that same sense - he's been the coolest guy in the room for 50 years, so it's natural that he's a little detached from everything.

Ringo ... meh. GREAT drummer. But he seems like he's been living off the fact that he's Ringo Starr.

But George ... there's something there. Some there there. Look at Something, his masterpiece (the song my wife and I, in hindsight, wish had been our first dance at our wedding). "You're asking me will my love grow/I don't know." That's a remarkable sentiment in a love song. It's not soaring and confident. It's hesitant, real. "Stick around now, it may show." God, what a wonderful sentiment. Are you the love of my life forever. I'm not sure ... but let's see. (And the solo is masterful.)

That's the theme in his songs. "I really want to know you/really want to grow with you." "What I feel, I can't say, but my love is there for you anytime of day."

There's something so real, so genuine about these songs. They're not about certainty. They're about the search.

And I think that's why George Harrison is my favorite Beatle. He doesn't know what he's found. He was always searching for something great.

It's the end of the year, which usually brings about memories of the year past or promises for the year coming. But it's the rare year on which you can look back and pinpoint one day as The Best Day Of The Year.

Sept. 23 was The Best Day of 2009 for me.

Weather-wise, it was a great late-summer/early fall kind of day. Sunny. Warm but not hot. Right around lunch time, my wife Jen and I got into our car and started on a three-hour drive to New Jersey. We had tickets for that night's Muse/U2 concert at Giants Stadium.

Why did we have tickets? Twilight. My wife's great obsession of 2009 - the books, the movies and (thankfully) the soundtrack. In a lot of ways, Twilight dominated our lives - in a good way. It gave us endless inside jokes we could make either in public or at home by ourselves. We were introduced to the improv genius of 100 Monkeys (fronted by Jasper Cullen himself, Jackson Rathbone), whom we got to meet and interview in a Barnes & Noble stockroom in Allentown, Pa. before seeing them play live in June.

The soundtrack brought Muse into my wife's life, and they became her new favorite band. That's why she was going to the show. She was the only person in Giants Stadium that day who did not care about seeing U2. How do not love a girl who goes to a show and doesn't care about the headliner.

We got to New Jersey in the middle of the afternoon and arrived at the house of our friends, Brian and Shawna. They were going to the show as well and had invited us to ride with them. In their limo. Brian's in sales, and he's a natural at it, so that's how he rolls. We spent some time in their new house, drinking wine and catching up before making the hour-long limo ride to the stadium. We got caught in traffic. I had to jump out and pee under an overpass in traffic (far too much beer in the limo). We got to the stadium, Brian and Shawna met up with friends who were tailgating, and Jen and I went into the stadium. We went up the long escalator to our seats in the upper deck, behind the stage.

Jen went into the bathroom, and I stood in the concourse to wait for her. As I'm waiting, I see a guy whom I instantly recognize. Brian O'Halloran. Dante from Clerks. One of my top five favorite movies of all-time, the movie I can pretty much recite by heart. Jen comes out and sees me staring at some random guy:

J: Who are you staring at?
B: Dante!
J: Oh wow, yeah he does look like him!
B: No ... it's Dante!
J: Really?
B: Really!
J: Gogogogogogogo!

The upset of the day is that, half in the bag, I remembered that his name was Brian and wasn't the asshole yelling "Dante!" at him. I shook his hand, had a blurry cellphone picture taken with him, one with him and my wife and I. He was very gracious, very nice. Jen and I were bouncingly giddy, the way you feel when something unexpectedly cool happens. I honestly don't think I would have been excited to see Bono walk by as I was to see Brian O'Halloran. You can never plan for the best things that happen - they have to just happen.

Then we got to our seats - third row from the top, behind the stage. Not a big deal, because the stage was ginormous and there was a massive video board. Then Muse walked on stage. My wife and I went nuts - seeing her giddy and excited always makes my day, and I hadn't seen her that excited since we saw the original Mark and Roger in Rent on their first night back on Broadway in 2007. Muse played 11 songs, and we sang along to every word, knew every note. They were ... they are ... a spectacular live band. We're going to see them, schedule permitting, in March at Madison Square Garden.

For my wife, the day was over. She had her moment. But then the stadium lights went out, "Space Oddity" by David Bowie began playing, and this electricity went through the place. U2 walked on stage. They played for 2 1/2 hours. They played old stuff, new stuff. They are the most professional band I've ever seen - I mean that as a compliment. They are naturals on stage. Bono preached, he got too political, but he's as good a showman as I've ever seen in concert ... plus, the man can sing. The Edge made his guitar do all those strange, wonderful things. Larry and Adam ... well, I'll believe until my dying day that they are the greatest rhythm section in rock and roll (at least on the short list). The boys brought the crowd to life with "Elevation." They had the crowd sing "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" with the reverence of a hymn.

Second song of the encore ... "With or Without You." It's my favorite song. Ever. I'm a sucker for songs that crescendo, and no song has ever done it better. My wife recorded the live version of it on her Blackberry. I refused to sing along. I sat there, in the warm night air, next to the love of my life, and listened to Bono and the crowd build and build to that big note.

It was a great year for music. Green Day put out another epic album that fueled me through days of doubt. The Tragically Hip made their best record in a decade, and we saw them on a night when it POURED on us in Rochester, my first time seeing my favorite band in nine years becoming even more memorable.

But that moment in Giants Stadium, I sat next to my wife and Bono and the crowd gave, and they gave, and they game themselves away ... I had goosebumps on my arm. It was a perfect moment.

There's more. Sometime that night ... I want to say it was during With or Without You, but that could be my desire for a perfect story ... I got a text message from a radio guy I knew from Binghamton. One of the players I covered for the Binghamton U. basketball team had been arrested for selling crack in Albany. This was the team I had covered to the NCAA Tournament in Greensboro, N.C. in March. Along with some controversy with the Binghamton Mets, it was the center of my professional year.

But that night, it wasn't my problem. Because I had left the newspaper business behind to return to grad school.

Over the next few weeks, my old beat exploded. Players were kicked off the team. A coach was suspended. The AD resigned. It was chaos. I missed it a few times. But they were fleeting thoughts, memories of how I wanted my old job to be instead of what it really was.

I had a new life now. One that challenged me in wonderful new ways. One that will hopefully lead to a new gig teaching others how to be the best they can. A life where I can could get a text message about news, shrug my shoulders, and go back to the concert.

A life where I can sit next to a pretty girl, listen to great music and enjoy a perfect day.

Yesterday's post about positive propaganda is now featured on The Huffington Post. Many thanks to Dr. Snow for posting it!

And to Binghamton University's history department, which rejected me from their American History masters program last year? Yeah, suck it.

“The sun never shined on a greater cause.”

“Liberty, property and no stamps!”

“Let us consider ourselves as men – freemen – Christian freemen – separate from the rest of the world and bound together by the same rights, interests and dangers.”

“These are the times that try men’s souls.”

These are some of the words that helped form the United States of America. The words of Thomas Paine, John Dickinson and Samuel Adams defined the American Revolution and in many respects, to this day, define what means to be an American.

They are also a textbook example of propaganda.

The American Revolution occurred in part because of a sustained, successful propaganda movement throughout the colonies. Starting more than a decade before shots were first heard around the world, the propaganda movement helped fuel the fires of revolution.

That may sound like somewhat of a shocking statement, given the connotations that have become associated with propaganda in modern times. To our ears and in our minds, propaganda is the ultimate in deception. It’s a tool of corrupt governments seeking to deceive people or of economic leaders looking to make a quick buck at the expense of poor workers. The word propaganda almost instantly brings to mind images of Hitler, Goebbels and Nazi Germany.

But propaganda is actually a value-free term. The dictionary definition of propaganda (according to the American Heritage Dictionary) is “The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause.” Notice the lack of positive or negative language in that definition. Propaganda itself is not inherently negative. Certainly, it has been used for many horrific purposes throughout history. However, there are also instances in which propaganda has been used to further positive agendas.

One such agenda was the American Revolution.

Samuel Adams, one of the leaders of the early revolutionary movement, is considered by many historians to be a master propagandist. His writings (primarily in the Boston Gazette) and his skills as a political organizer helped focus colonial anger at British taxation policies into the emerging revolutionary movement. Dickinson’s series of 12 essays, “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania,” helped spread anti-British from its center in New England and the Northeast throughout all 13 colonies. Paine’s work – “Common Sense” before the Declaration of Independence and “The Rights of Man” after the war had started in earnest – remain inspirational masterpieces of patriotic propaganda.

The story of the American Revolution is so often told with a sense of inevitability. That America’s Independence was pre-ordained. In fact, the colonies’ decision to breakaway from the world’s economic and military superpower of that era was (and even in retrospect is) a stunning decision. It’s a tribute to the political, writing and persuasion talent of Samuel Adams, John Dickinson, Thomas Paine and others.

It’s also a reminder of the potential positive power of propaganda.

(This entry is based off a much longer paper written for Dr. Nancy Snow's War, Media and Propaganda class at Syracuse University.)

Deadspin, the popular sports blog, finds itself in potentially dangerous waters. The site has started a series of posts titled "ESPN Horndog Dossier" in which it is exposing the alleged various sexual misdeeds of ESPN staffers. The site's operator announced the series in a post the other day.

Now, it should be pointed out that Deadspin is kind of the sports equivalent of TMZ in the celebrity world, posting pictures of athletes out drinking and hanging out with women. It's also worth mentioning that Deadspin is owned by Gawker. This isn't a blog run by four guys in a sports bar.

Still ...

I help teach Communications Law. We just finished the section on libel and privacy. These are the waters Deadspin is swimming in. Because that first post sure makes it sound like the site is going to publish rumors. And all it takes is one of these rumors, even with some HR documentation, to be false. Then you've got the magical equation ...

Publication + identification + defamation + "actual malice" = libel.

(Plus, one of the posts in the series was about an ESPN senior VP. She's hardly a public figure in the way an anchor is - so she wouldn't even have to prove the "actual malice." Just the defamation if the story is false.)

I like Deadspin. It's a funny site, and it was a much-needed breath of fresh Internet air in a sometimes staid sports world. So I hope, for their sakes, that everything they're posting is provably true. Because if it's not, it looks like they could be up the well-known estuary without a navigation device.

A couple weeks ago in my War, Media and Propaganda class, our discussion came around to new media and, in particular, Twitter. What took me by surprise is how the people in the class - a few undergrads, but mostly grad students in the professional programs - hated Twitter.

It's not that they just didn't use Twitter. It's not that they were sick of it (like we sometimes get sick of Facebook). They <i>hated</i> Twitter. With unabashed passion.

What's surprising is the demographic involved. These are college-aged kids and young professionals in their early 20s. Aren't they supposed to be the early adapters, the ones who embrace technology and Web 2.0? And yet they didn't try to hide their disdain for Twitter.

(And the fact that I can officially refer to this age group as "they" and not "we" ... holy crap, I'm old.)

I'm wondering why this is? A couple reasons from class, and then one or two of my own:

From Class:
1. From a professional journalistic standpoint, it can be a significant drain on time and resources. The point was brought up - if you are on assignment at a breaking story, it's becoming expected that you will take time from gathering news, shooting video, interviewing people, etc. (aka, doing your job) to send a Twitter message. If you've never been a reporter, this probably sounds like an excuse, but I can tell you that it's not. The whole point of reporting is "gather, sort, report." The time it takes to Twitter is time you don't have to talk to another source.

2. It's stupid. Exact words from more than one student. When it started, remember, Twitter's tag line was "What are you doing right now?" That led to the perception (at least) that it's all about people posting what they're eating for lunch. I don't know if it was every really like that, but that's the perception. Now, Twitter's tag line is "Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world." Which is better. But I think that perception still remains.

My own opinion:
1. Twitter can be confusing at first. The web of #, @ and FFs can be hard to navigate for a newbie, and that can be intimidating.

2. A kind of social media backlash. First it was MySpace. Then it was Facebook. Now, another Web-based service comes along to connect me with people? Enough! I don't want another online service to be tethered to, another Web site I have to check every day. I've surrendered to the fact that I'm addicted to Facebook. But Twitter, too? That's too much for me. And I wonder how much that's true for other people, too. How much social media is too much?

3. The name. I'm probably alone in thinking this, and that's fine ... but I truly believe that the fact that messages are called "tweets" is one reason people are slow to take to Twitter. Saying "I'm going to Tweet," I'm sorry, just sounds stupid.

I know this makes me sound anti-Twitter, and I'm really not. I think it's a tool that can be used for good (it got me quoted in the New York Post this summer). But at the same time, the backlash (for lack of a better word) is real and worth looking it, I think.

As a Buffalo Bills fan, today was a fantastic day.

See, I had to work at my part-time job from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. With no TV and radios forbidden at the book/calendar store at the mall, I didn't have to watch the by-all-accounts awful 6-3 loss to Cleveland today. Members of the team's front office called the game a low point. The owner was supposed to receive his hall of fame ring at halftime, but the ceremony was canceled (even though no one told the fans or the media).

Seriously? This team stinks out loud.

And I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a fan. There's a certain romanticism that comes from cheering on your team every year, celebrating the euphoria of a big victory and the soul-crushing agony of a big loss. And there's a real romanticism that comes with sticking by a team through soul-crushing loss after soul-crushing loss. That's what it means to be a "real fan." The worst thing you can be called is a "bandwagon fan."

Lately, I've been wondering why that it is? Why is it so wrong to like a team when they're good and not when they're bad? If a restaurant has bad food and lousy service, I don't go back until they get better. I've had bands I used to hang on every note of that have slipped in my opinion and have fallen off my radar (Our Lady Peace, whom I still really like but aren't in my top-3 anymore if I'm being honest). I loved West Wing but hated Studio 60 - does that make me a bad Aaron Sorkin fan? No - West Wing was one of the best shows of all time, Studio 60 was a crappy self-indulgent mess.

So why is that we (and I include myself in this) stick with a sports team through good and bad? Why is there nobility in that?

This season - particularly the last three weeks - there's been a major drop off in my Bills' fandom. I remember sitting at a bar near my house three weeks ago watching them lose to the Saints. At one point in the second half, I realized I had had enough and got up and left the bar. I half watched the game last week while doing Comm Theory homework. This week, I welcomed the chance to work at a part-time job rather than watch the game.

It's not a protest against the team's eternal suckitude. I'm not giving up. This is not a good bye to the team of my youth, the team of my home. I guess I just realized that this season, it's no fun being a Bills fan. And what's the point of being a fan of a team and watching sports if it's not fun?