Track
Bring Me To Life
fun fact: if you listen in at about 2:48 not only does the guy miss a line but he attempts to cover it up by screaming “RUFF” like a freakign dog
the “you live with your parents” insult is really flaccid because a metric shitton of cultures don’t see “leave the house forever” as some grandiose moment of liberation that’s so important to the development of a person that it has to happen as fast as possible. until i came to the USA i didn’t know a single person who was pressured by their parents to leave the house because they’re “too old to stay there” or whatever. in puerto rico it is really common to stay with your parents until they and you are both stable enough that you can leave. whaddaya know, there are cultures that don’t place a stigma on being poor or wanting to care for your family or needing your family to care for you for some other reason.
I had been on the ground helping Al Jazeera America cover the protests and unrest in Ferguson, Mo., since this all started last week. After what I saw last night, I will not be returning. The behavior and number of journalists there is so appalling, that I cannot in good conscience continue to be a part of the spectacle.
Things I’ve seen:
-Cameramen yelling at residents in public meetings for standing in way of their cameras
-Cameramen yelling at community leaders for stepping away from podium microphones to better talk to residents
-TV crews making small talk and laughing at the spot where Mike Brown was killed, as residents prayed, mourned
-A TV crew of a to-be-left-unnamed major cable network taking pieces out of a Ferguson business retaining wall to weigh down their tent
-Another major TV network renting out a gated parking lot for their one camera, not letting people in. Safely reporting the news on the other side of a tall fence.
-Journalists making the story about them
-National news correspondents glossing over the context and depth of this story, focusing instead on the sexy images of tear gas, rubber bullets, etc.
-One reporter who, last night, said he came to Ferguson as a “networking opportunity.” He later asked me to take a picture of him with Anderson Cooper.
One anecdote that stands out: as the TV cameras were doing their live shots in front of the one burnt-out building in the three-block stretch of “Ground Zero,” around the corner was a community food/goods drive. I heard one resident say: “Where are the cameras? I’m going to go see if I can find some people to film this.”
Last night a frustrated resident confronted me when he saw my camera: “Yall are down here photographing US, but who gets paid?!”
There are now hundreds of journalists from all over the world coming to Ferguson to film what has become a spectacle. I get the sense that many feel this is their career-maker. In the early days of all this, I was warmly greeted and approached by Ferguson residents. They were glad that journalists were there. The past two days, they do not even look at me and blatantly ignore me. I recognize that I am now just another journalist to them, and their frustration with us is clear. In the beginning there was a recognizable need for media presence, but this is the other extreme. They need time to work through this as a community, without the cameras.
We should all be ashamed, and I cannot do it anymore. I am thankful for my gracious editors who understand that.
And here we have the ugly face of the 24 hour news cycle, the very 21st century kind of reporting that demands we not only have fifty million outlets (print, broadcast but overwhelmingly online) and therefore the material to fill them. There’s a distinct difference between covering the news, acting as the 4th estate, and searching for the truth - ie, what real journalism is - and finding content to fill your outlet. Journalism isn’t about making stories, it’s about finding them, giving people a chance to tell them, sharing them. True journalism is the noblest of pursuits but this kind of behaviour (from the journalists or from their networks, I don’t know or care really) is reprehensible and drags the entire profession down with it. Journalists search for the truth and then tell it. That’s all. If you want to be the story yourself, you had better stop reporting and go do something so spectacular and unusual it demands attention, because reporting ain’t it.
I had been on the ground helping Al Jazeera America cover the protests and unrest in Ferguson, Mo., since this all started last week. After what I saw last night, I will not be returning. The behavior and number of journalists there is so appalling, that I cannot in good conscience continue to be a part of the spectacle.
Things I’ve seen:
-Cameramen yelling at residents in public meetings for standing in way of their cameras
-Cameramen yelling at community leaders for stepping away from podium microphones to better talk to residents
-TV crews making small talk and laughing at the spot where Mike Brown was killed, as residents prayed, mourned
-A TV crew of a to-be-left-unnamed major cable network taking pieces out of a Ferguson business retaining wall to weigh down their tent
-Another major TV network renting out a gated parking lot for their one camera, not letting people in. Safely reporting the news on the other side of a tall fence.
-Journalists making the story about them
-National news correspondents glossing over the context and depth of this story, focusing instead on the sexy images of tear gas, rubber bullets, etc.
-One reporter who, last night, said he came to Ferguson as a “networking opportunity.” He later asked me to take a picture of him with Anderson Cooper.
One anecdote that stands out: as the TV cameras were doing their live shots in front of the one burnt-out building in the three-block stretch of “Ground Zero,” around the corner was a community food/goods drive. I heard one resident say: “Where are the cameras? I’m going to go see if I can find some people to film this.”
Last night a frustrated resident confronted me when he saw my camera: “Yall are down here photographing US, but who gets paid?!”
There are now hundreds of journalists from all over the world coming to Ferguson to film what has become a spectacle. I get the sense that many feel this is their career-maker. In the early days of all this, I was warmly greeted and approached by Ferguson residents. They were glad that journalists were there. The past two days, they do not even look at me and blatantly ignore me. I recognize that I am now just another journalist to them, and their frustration with us is clear. In the beginning there was a recognizable need for media presence, but this is the other extreme. They need time to work through this as a community, without the cameras.
We should all be ashamed, and I cannot do it anymore. I am thankful for my gracious editors who understand that.
And here we have the ugly face of the 24 hour news cycle, the very 21st century kind of reporting that demands we not only have fifty million outlets (print, broadcast but overwhelmingly online) and therefore the material to fill them. There’s a distinct difference between covering the news, acting as the 4th estate, and searching for the truth - ie, what real journalism is - and finding content to fill your outlet. Journalism isn’t about making stories, it’s about finding them, giving people a chance to tell them, sharing them. True journalism is the noblest of pursuits but this kind of behaviour (from the journalists or from their networks, I don’t know or care really) is reprehensible and drags the entire profession down with it. Journalists search for the truth and then tell it. That’s all. If you want to be the story yourself, you had better stop reporting and go do something so spectacular and unusual it demands attention, because reporting ain’t it.
Like we keep having the “are overly sexualized portrayals of women in comics a good or a bad thing” conversation over and over and that’s not actually the fucking debate
the actual debate is that there are almost no women working in mainstream comics and everything that comes out in comics is super male gaze-y and regardless of how offensive or not offensive sexy women are, the solution is to hire more women. We need to stop derailing the conversation
How to tell if a blog is trash
Legend of Korra OP 2 - "Haruka Kanata" by Unlimits
At last, it’s complete! lotusinthefire, this is the reason for all the smiley faces. Behold my Book 2 fanmade anime opening, as inspired by this one for Book 1. I chose to do mine in an English-subbed OP style because I wanted to be able to emphasize the song lyrics and also because that’s what I’m used to seeing. :P Shoutout to my friends birabu, pulpofiction, fireferretfuzzies, and humanraava for all their help!
This project has been sitting on my laptop for a long time, but I was recently motivated to finish it in honor of my latest tumblr milestone. Thanks so much for 2k+ followers! I’m so honored to be able to partake in this fandom with all of you.
it’s been years since i’ve first seen this comic and i still think it has one of the best punchline delivers of anything i’ve ever seen
What if you went to a parallel universe and were going to meet your evil self but the version of you there is actually really nice and you’re the asshole
Track
Pray
Artist
Tommy Heavenly6
