Events Memories

[mleach]

My memory is that the Stonewall Riots did not get much coverage in the national media.

On the flip side you had the AIDS related deaths of Ryan White, Kimberly Bergalis and Robert Ray. While all three had received national attention due to AIDS I do remember at least in the case of Ryan White for a time some small newspapers and even a few TV and radio stations had flat out refused to do any stories about him because they felt that they would be pushing the gay agenda had they done a story on Ryan White. Come to think of it I think at least one of the taboilds "tried" to link Ryan White having AIDS to NAMBLA ( North American Man Boy Love Association ) as a result of a sexual encounter btween White and a member, I believe it was the National Examiner or the Globe but I am pretty sure it wasn't the National Enquier as Mike Walker ( the Enquier gossip columist ) I seem to recall actually had donated money back then to the White family.

 

[Mr. Mike]

On a sports related note, I have some events of signifcance:

August 12, 1994 (baseball went on strike)
February 16, 2005 (the date the NHL season was scrapped due to the lockout)
Malice at the Palace in Detroit
The date Spygate broke out

I myself don't remember what I was doing on those dates, but I do recall getting ready for work on the morning of September 11th, 2001 when my mother told me to turn on the TV. I did go to work that day, but the day ended on a more somber note for me.

 

[firepoint525]

With regard to Michael Jackson's death, I heard about that one on the radio. The announcer kept prefacing it by saying "TMZ is reporting...." I don't know if this means that TMZ is not/was not a reliable source for information, or if he simply hadn't been able to verify the news via another source.


All of you would like the book We Interrupt This Broadcast. It covers news coverage of every major event in electronic news media history, starting with the Hindenberg explosion. My book goes through JFK, Jr's plane crash, but I'm sure that there have been some updated volumes issued since then.

 

[BRNout]

With regard to Michael Jackson's death, I heard about that one on the radio. The announcer kept prefacing it by saying "TMZ is reporting...." I don't know if this means that TMZ is not/was not a reliable source for information, or if he simply hadn't been able to verify the news via another source.


All of you would like the book We Interrupt This Broadcast. It covers news coverage of every major event in electronic news media history, starting with the Hindenberg explosion. My book goes through JFK, Jr's plane crash, but I'm sure that there have been some updated volumes issued since then.

Ironically, TMZ was first on that story - even when "mainstream" outlets were sleeping, and their version of the story was the most accurate. Not to go OT, but this elitist attitude that's fostered by the old-line media organizations with respect to what IS a reliable source of information and what ISN'T happens to be out of date. In the past 5 years, we've had big celebrity/political stories broken by the likes of TMZ and the National Enquirer. Initially, the mainstream media scoffed at these breaking stories only to find out later that they had been scooped (to use an old phrase). Some of the newer news gathering organizations work harder, are leaner and are sharper than the dinosaurs.

I think that we all need to take a step back and re-evaluate our ideas when it comes to who is a "reliable" source of information and who is not. When it comes to celebrity "news" (if you call it that), TMZ is pretty darn sharp. In the future, we'll be getting our breaking news of big events from all kinds of sources - many of which would not be considered 'mainstream'. The days of Walter Cronkite, Huntley/Brinkley, Howard K. Smith, The Washington Post and The New York Times dominating the news and deciding what is not news are long gone.

 

[mleach]

With regard to Michael Jackson's death, I heard about that one on the radio. The announcer kept prefacing it by saying "TMZ is reporting...." I don't know if this means that TMZ is not/was not a reliable source for information, or if he simply hadn't been able to verify the news via another source.


All of you would like the book We Interrupt This Broadcast. It covers news coverage of every major event in electronic news media history, starting with the Hindenberg explosion. My book goes through JFK, Jr's plane crash, but I'm sure that there have been some updated volumes issued since then.

Ironically, TMZ was first on that story - even when "mainstream" outlets were sleeping, and their version of the story was the most accurate. Not to go OT, but this elitist attitude that's fostered by the old-line media organizations with respect to what IS a reliable source of information and what ISN'T happens to be out of date. In the past 5 years, we've had big celebrity/political stories broken by the likes of TMZ and the National Enquirer. Initially, the mainstream media scoffed at these breaking stories only to find out later that they had been scooped (to use an old phrase). Some of the newer news gathering organizations work harder, are leaner and are sharper than the dinosaurs.

I think that we all need to take a step back and re-evaluate our ideas when it comes to who is a "reliable" source of information and who is not. When it comes to celebrity "news" (if you call it that), TMZ is pretty darn sharp. In the future, we'll be getting our breaking news of big events from all kinds of sources - many of which would not be considered 'mainstream'. The days of Walter Cronkite, Huntley/Brinkley, Howard K. Smith, The Washington Post and The New York Times dominating the news and deciding what is not news are long gone.

Believe it or not I would actually trust outlets like TMZ and even the "gulp" National Enquier before I would trust say Yahoo for example when it comes to news. Example Yahoo doing a story on the "recession/depression" do I really need to see 100 "comments" telling me that the labor laws of Phoenix are the same as Denver's or in Indianapolis? Do I need to be told that I should buy a gun and blow my brains out? I actually saw this on Yahoo last week. Do they even montior this stuff? And those Forbes lists? Ah yeah..Las Vegas is a good place to find a job right now? Anyway its enough to make one miss of the days of Walter Cronkite and Huntley & Brinkley. Can you imagine Cronkite going on the CBS Evening News saying "America is F*cked..go kill yourself"? Today..well....Yahoo kinda does that right now with their "comments" which sometimes end up being as important as the actual news that they reported.

 

[Mr. Mike]

With regard to positive events, here's a recent one in the form of the 2010 World Series. The question is:

Where were you on November 1st of this year when the Giants beat the Rangers to win their first World Series in 56 years, and first since moving to San Francisco?

If anyone's interested, I was watching the game on TV and at the same time, doing research on the net regarding alternate sports history.

Can you think of any other positive events, that is events of a feel-good nature?

 

[blackgold]

Here are 3 positive events:

1. The Live Aid Concert on July 13th., 1985(MTV aired 21 hours of that concert!)

2. The Millenium on December 31st., 1999(PBS aired 25 hours while ABC aired 23 hours and 10 minutes. CNN aired 100 hours of coverage, MSNBC did 30 hours and Univision took 24 hours to cross the world.)

3. The Bicentennial of the USA! (CBS did 16 hours and NBC had 11 hours.)