Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, et al. really piss me off. The phrase "liberal news media" in particular gets me going in a way that very few other things do. It's a ham-fisted, uninformed, simplistic, and effective way of creating a perception that is all about furthering themselves in their careers in punditry. It has nothing to do with any facts, research, or actual bias existing in media. Despite this, the phrase has become a buzzword associated with almost every successful right-wing political pundit you can name.

I think that this would be a good drinking game. Flip on Fox News Channel or turn on your local AM bastion of right-wing talk radio. Take a shot every time anyone says "liberal news media." You can immediately stop if anyone attempts to define or substantiate the claim that the entirety of news media has a left-wing bias. I'll see you in the emergency room in an hour or two.

Ask yourself, who does the phrase "liberal news media" benefit? It is very much in the interest of a person like Bill O'Reilly to convince you that he is the only person you should listen to because, see, everyone else is evil or incompetent. Everyone else has an agenda. No one else can be trusted. This method of media consumption is unhealthy. It does exactly the opposite of what our democracy was founded upon. Instead of fostering discussion and diversity of viewpoints, it indoctrinates.

Guilty of Their Own Agenda

Paradoxically, these pundits are guilty of doing the very thing that lies at the heart of their accusations. They claim that there is an agenda in media that caters toward only certain ways of thinking. By discounting other sources of media this way, they are themselves creating an agenda.

Their agenda is to be distrustful of all sources of media that are not them. While we should as educated consumers of media question sources as often as possible, the problem is that these pundits, through the use of the phrase "liberal news media," are encouraging their viewers to only question other sources of media. Magically, this benefits the person speaking in terms of cultivating an audience. 

As Real as Roswell and the Shooter on the Grassy Knoll

The truth is that the "liberal news media" does not exist. It cannot exist. While the last 15-20 years have seen a rise in media conglomeration, there is not conglomeration to the extent that only one entity controls media. There are simply too many levels to media and too many different purveyors of media. There are subjects, writers, editors, actors, executive producers, and run of the mill executives.

If there really were a liberal conspiracy, all of those people would have to sign off on it. And, the ones that did not agree to sign off on it would have to agree to not talk about it. Even less likely, is the fact that a conspiracy would require competing organizations to cooperate with each other in this conspiracy. While I am sure that agendas can be set on a per-organization basis, there is absolutely nothing to enforce a similarity in agendas between organizations.

In fact, the marketplace, one of the things conservatives like to rely on quite often, dictates that differing agendas should prosper. Organizations only draw competition by crafting a similar business strategy to another organization. Surely, if the market is saturated with corporations of type Y, then a decent business strategy would be to create a corporation of type Z in order to be set apart. While a difference in type does not necessarily ensure success, it does ensure easier branding and marketing.

Success is its Own Disproof

This is exactly what Fox News Channel has done. They have crafted their brand as a counterpoint to the entirety of the rest of news media. Their slogan, “Fair and Balanced,” insinuates that other stations are neither balanced nor fair, and it has worked. They are an extremely popular outlet in certain segments and demographics. Air America would kill to be that successful.

The silliest part is that the existence and success of Fox News Channel disproves many of their pundits’ accusations. If there really were a liberal conspiracy in news media, Bill O’Reilly would not have a pulpit to preach from. That would be some weak conspiracy to permit not only one, but several, political pundits to have extremely large audiences across many different media outlets.

Media is media. Make no mistake about it. Anytime an entity is packaging and designing something for public consumption, that person is involved in the creation of media. No matter the intention, that person, upon publishing has transitioned from being a consumer of media to being a producer of media. This is the case no matter what they say, and also whether or not it serves their purpose.

Irresponsibility and Stupidity

The whole thing is just stupid, and smacks of immature fear-mongering and indoctrination. In constructing their bleak picture of media, these pundits that use the phrase “liberal news media,” have conveniently forgotten to draw themselves in.

Any source of media that overtly encourages its viewers to discount the opinions of others, in favor of itself, cannot and should not be trusted. It is completely counter  to the marketplace of ideas, and is fundamentally irresponsible. The public should not be encouraged to expect media to interpret media for them. That is simply not a job that can be outsourced.

Anyone who hasn't already, who has any interest in discussions of taboo in culture and media, should take a look at this talk from Violet Blue. It's one of those videos that, while you watch, you will find yourself breathing more easily with the knowledge that there exists someone with this clarity of purpose and commitment to education.

Sure, this talk is about sex, but I assure you that there is no nudity and only a conservative seasoning of dirty talk. It's almost work safe, and it is extremely interesting. As someone who, at some point, would love to work in media dealing with the general public, this Google Tech Talk gives me a kind of reassurance that there might be a spot for somewhere for me: a smart person willing to research, explain to lay people, and raise the intellectual water level. I believe that Violet Blue is this type of person. 

As well, as a human being I find this video to be refreshing. I wouldn't call myself a deviant by any stretch, but the way this woman speaks about sex makes sense to me. It is very interesting that having an evolved sexual philosophy means that you're willing to admit that humans are biological entities, animals, that have primal aspects to them.

While I feel she does go overboard at certain points in her talk, I feel that her heart is in the right place. Specifically, I'm wary of her assertions that sex workers are not typically victims who are acting out and that the porn industry is not a problematic industry with regard to getting in and getting out. I have a hard time believing her there, and she damages her credibility by not knowing about Dr. Drew and resorting to ad hominem by association attacks on legislation.

Still, this is definitely a good and interesting talk on the subject. As this is the most popular of all the Google Tech Talks on Youtube, guess why? I'm not sure this video needs any pimping, but I was just feeling lonely and wanted to vent my enjoyment of this video. Please watch.

I'm pleasantly surprised with how my podcast is shaping up. The Google hits are coming in as they should, and my family seems to be doing a good job of passing it around. It's sounding more professional with every episode, and it feels like I'm doing something worthwhile.

I'm working on the next episode now, and I really have too many ideas for show topics. So I kind of shift them around depending on what kind of questions I'm being asked. I think I'm going to try to get some of my fellow exchange students to come on with me. I admit that 30 minutes of just myself could get pretty boring.

I want there to be another person, but I have no idea what sort of questions I'm going to ask them or what they would want to talk about. So, there probably won't be a guest on episode 003, but probably episode 004. I just need to work out some of the kinks in the production. Garageband really doesn't like to poll from multiple USB audio devices. I had big trouble last time I tried, but it might be due to this USB issue. We'll see.

I really enjoy doing the podcast more than I ever enjoyed writing a blog. That's not to say that I dislike writing, but that it's more of a struggle. You're rendering natural speech and emotion into something that has very rigid syntax and signaling because people can't see your face or hear your tone. With audio, there isn't any of this problem. You don't really have to worry about punctuation. It's a performance rather than something that's sort of smithed and worked over time. It's a more binary experience. You were either good and smooth at explaining whatever it was, or you weren't. There isn't this nagging feeling surrounding every comma, hyphen, or semicolon.

There's something freeing and natural about hitting record and posting whatever comes out of your mouth in the next 30 minutes. It feels like I'm cutting out a middle-man. I'm speaking directly to my audience rather than through a code, and it feels more intimate. I've always felt this way about radio because I've always felt very close to the personalities I've gotten to know through radio. I don't think I'm alone in this. Marshall McLuhan identified this precisely when he said that radio was a hot medium. Radio is more interactive and engaging on an intellectual level than television. It stimulates the imagination rather than lulling it into submission in 20 or 40 minute chunks.

I like radio as a medium, and it's really fun to be creating some of it rather than just consuming it in en masse. To give you an idea, I listen to about 6-8 hours of talk radio per day. I think it's time to give back.

I was extremely grateful for all the nice things people said about my mix, and I was grateful for all the good suggestions. I'm going to implement most of them and tune up the stereo mix before I begin my surround mix.

Though, I do have to take a few days off to go get my Japanese visa in Chicago this weekend.

I finally put my mix together today. I had everything mostly together before today, but it wasn't really polished at all. There were still missing sounds. Some weren't timed right. None of them sounded natural, and nothing was leveled. I believe I spent about an hour per minute just going sound by sound EQ'ing, leveling, and listening. I'm extremely pleased with the way it turned out. I can't believe it sounds as good as it does. I didn't realize how much I had completed and how on track I was, until today. This whole semester I've felt behind, and I've felt like I was underperforming. I'm pleasantly surprised to see that my mix is nearly complete now.

There's still more work to do. There are a few little effects here and there that people probably won't notice, but they'll make me feel better. The balance is a little off in places, but it's really good. I find myself being caught up watching it now rather than nitpicking technical things.

My final music fell through, though. I would have liked to have it, but the Lost Season 3 soundtrack got pushed back until May 9th. Not only is that after the end of the semester, but I'm not even going to be in the country. Stan said that this was okay. The music I did have in there was fine. I would like to put in the proper music at some point when I get back from Japan.

I usually hate using DVD Studio Pro. It's fairly unintuitive in terms of functionality, but I found a method that works excellently and very easily. I hate using Photoshop for similar reasons. They're just too big of hammers for such stupidly simple jobs. iDVD is the opposite problem. All of themes look like they're from iDVD, and they are all watermarked with the Apple logo.

Here's a real easy way to create a professional-looking DVD menu using a few simple tools in conjunction with DVD Studio Pro. Use Keynote to create the neutral version of your DVD menu, what it's going to look like with nothing selected. Make sure to use the custom slide size of 640x480. This is 4:3 square pixel version of the NTSC television standard. If you don't know what that means. Then just remember to use the custom slide size. Then, duplicate that slide. Modify each of the menu options to their selected form. Export both slides as high-quality PNG images from Keynote. Import them both into DVD Studio Pro.

Set your neutral image as the background. Set your selected image as the overlay. Go to the settings menu, and select "square pixels." This will make your image not look stretched. Next, create the buttons you're using and place them. The buttons here function as a little window into the overlay, the other slide you created. So, only make them in the places where you want the selection modifier to show up. In my case, I used an underline. So, I made the buttons only as big as the underline underneath each menu item. Finally, go to the colors tab in the inspector for your menu. Choose advanced, and then set them custom so that only the colors you want to show through, show through. My text was white. So I told iDVD to let white show through as white.

I know that this is a very brief look into how I created my menu, but I don't really have the time right now to write a full simple DVD Studio Pro/Keynote tutorial.