same old media

In JC's class today, he had everyone go around the room, introduce themselves and say what type of media everyone consumes and a gripe about the media. Easy enough, I thought, and a great way to learn about the people in the class.

I was close to last, and all but one person said their main news source was the New York Times. The other person said the LA Times. "That's my boy," said JC.

Despite our recently getting a subscription, I couldn't help but just say Democracy Now and even mention the web site. What I wish I had also said The Daily Show and The Colbert report, which is admittedly the case on some days, but mostly to irk JC. He's very sweet and I respect the heck out of him. He's a journalist's journalist. True and True, but he also is very tied to trad'l journalism.

When people started making critiques of what the media do and don't do. He interrupted us halfway through and said he doesn't want sweeping accusations but personal gripes about what you want to see or don't see in the news when you "read" the newspaper in the morning.

Uh, but don't you get it?

But that led me to say that there isn't enough coverage of southern issues and when there is, it seems to be derisive. I should have shut up then, but I added that after having been a labor organizer, there's not enough coverage of labor issues. Hmm...now that I write it, I'm glad I did say it, but I'm definitely feeling more and more out of place in an environment where "liberal" is about as left as people can imagine.

The discussion so far has been very stymied. It's been great, though, to read Schudson and other classic journalism academics. Thank god, though, I have NB to balance things out. Now all I have to do is find the time to ingest the media I want, so I'm not talking out of my a__.