Everybody Look What's Goin' Round

I’m no daisy, certainly, but sometimes it is overwhelming. A snapshot of CNN.com on Wednesday January 9 showed links to 20 or so separate stories. Of those 20, here are 10 headlines:

Four children's bodies found with woman
Hiker murder suspect now focus of Florida case
Pregnant Marine vanishes before testifying
Police: Spiteful dad threw 4 tots off bridge
'Brutal execution' caught on tape, U.S. says
KSAT: Medic never checked victim's pulse
2 children among 5 deaths blamed on weird weather
Man sees 'mark of the beast,' cuts off hand
3 die in 50-car pileup in fog, smoke
Investigator: Tiger attack victims will not face charges

Roughly half of the stories on the site at that moment pertained directly with murder or tragic death in extremis.

This death story ratio on CNN.com is considerably higher, I believe, than the death ratio of CNN’s TV news coverage.

None of these stories affects me. Not in the way that politics and world events and the economy and public policy issues affect me. These are tragic stories to be sure, but the four dead children and their dead mother do not inform my life in any important way. A father throwing his four kids off of a bridge doesn’t lead me to take any action or learn any lessons. They simply sadden me and shock me and make me shake my head in dismay.

So I couldn’t help wondering what pushed CNN.com’s editors to the point at which their seining of the day’s world news for publication resulted in this deathly detritus instead of real news that affects everyone.

I don’t believe that TV news could sustain such a high death ratio in its stories; national TV news tends toward broader stories with more national and international applicability.

Surely some of these tragedies would also be talked about on CNN and Headline News, but the broadcasts could not get by with having these stories comprise the majority of their programming.

But CNN.com, while global, really does serve a personal, what’s-interesting-to-me purpose. They can make it as trivial and tragic as they want, knowing that the few folks who want more substantive news can easily toggle over to another web browser instance. CNN.com knows that its readers want quick-hit 200 to 400 word articles about stuff that gives them a thrill.

That explains why web news and broadcast news CAN be so different. People expect different things from TV and the web. But what explains why the two ARE so different?

Simply put, death stories cause people to click. This is far more important, I think, than the tired old lament about the media gravitating toward bloody, sensational stories. For sites like CNN.com, this has come to truly represent their purpose; to not just provide news, but to provide tragic news, almost to the exclusion of other subjects.

CNN.com is a for-profit site generating advertising revenue off of its content while also cross promoting its broadcast ventures. Fine. The more clicks a story gets, the more profitable it is. Dandy. And apparently, the more tragic a headline is, the more prone viewers are to click it. Sad, but not surprising.

What is most pitiable about the situation is that the administrators of CNN.com surely have robust metrics to show PRECISELY which kinds of stories generate the most activity. I imagine the marketing folks with a sophisticated metrics dashboard at their disposal, allowing them to see associations between content and page hits in dozens of different ways. The editors are attuned to (and likely compensated directly for) posting as many of those stories as possible.

What this really tells me is that CNN.com has become what broadcast news wishes it could become. . . a revenue factory that is free (because of its format) to ride the far edge of sensationalism and tragedy to generate income instead of informing with actual news. Broadcast media doesn’t do this only because they can’t. Yet.

I hereby vow to use headlines as a screed to smooth out the concrete of my news consumption, pulling the news that I need to consume to the surface (for me to read) and making invisible those stories that are designed only to titillate and earn revenue. I will contribute to the bloodbath no longer.

Is this a big move on my part? Nope. Will it bring about any change? Nope.

But as Mother Teresa once said, “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”

Nothing Better Than a GRN

I was feeling punk last Sunday, just cresting the peak of a January cold. Sick enough to be miserable, but not sick enough to admit to being so.

Wild card weekend in the NFL meant there was no football worth watching on TV. I was weary and uncomfortable and irascible and just couldn’t figure out where to put myself. I couldn’t get comfortable on the living room couch. We have no comfortable chairs in our house. The idea of going to bed in our bedroom seemed too much like admitting that I really was sick. So what was I to do?

The guest room.

It stands apart from the general traffic and bustle of our house in a kind of sub-space isolation. It’s a simple room, neatly arranged with a tidy little bed and an old fashioned writer’s desk. Quiet and dim, uncluttered and neatly appointed, it's a kind of peaceful in-home hotel room retreat.

I’m pretty sure there are few things better than an impromptu Sunday afternoon guest room nap. Door closed, shades pulled, asleep on top of the bed spread, covered by a light blanket, removed from the world for a time.

A guest room nap (GRN). I can't wait for my next one.

"Subprime" Update

As an addendum to my earlier post about the meaning and misunderstanding of the word subprime. . .

In early 2008, the American Dialect Society named subprime the word of the year for 2007.

Then again, the same group chose plutoed (to be demoted or devalued) as their 2006 word of the year, which goes to show you. . . something, I guess.

How Important, Service?

Took the wife and daughter to Big Cedar Lodge near Branson, Missouri between Christmas and New Years this year. Pricey by our standards, but it was a short trip and we like our niceties. (Note, the room we had is circled in red in the picture above. Second floor, all the way to the left.)

The first two days of our trip were great. We ate at the lodge restaurants, partook of a carriage ride around the grounds, bought a car load of souvenirs and generally acted like great patrons.

Toward the evening on that second day, our daughter started not feeling well.

Thinking ahead, I saw us perhaps wanting to check out a day early to get our sick daughter home. I stopped by the front desk that evening and asked the guy (we’ll call him John) about my chances of NOT being charged for that last day if we checked out the following morning, a day early. John’s response? “You’ll still be held responsible for that last day. Sorry.” He was implacable.

That night, our daughter’s fever spiked to 103.3 and by morning she was throwing up every fifteen minutes. We had to leave, regardless of whether or not we’d be charged for that last day.

I packed the car and went back to the front desk at 9:00 a.m. that morning to give them one more shot at doing the right thing. This time, I talked to a different guy (we’ll call him Andy), and I could tell before I even opened my mouth that he’d be able to help me out.

I told Andy my story and asked if I’d be charged for that last day. Andy’s response? “No sweat. I can take care of that for you.” Clickity clickity click. Done. No charge for the last unused day. Andy wished my daughter well and sent us on our way with a caring smile.

Had the first guy (John) with the obstructionist attitude prevailed, that resort would have made $269 more from me this year. But I would have left that resort angry, I would have never returned, and I would have made it my mission in life to steer others clear of Big Cedar Lodge.

Because of Andy, though, I’ll likely take my family back to that resort again around Christmas time, spending around $1200 on lodging, food, souvenirs and activities. And we’ll likely go back year after year.

How important is customer service?

Where Lies the Value?

I find myself struggling to take seriously the near-instant and seemingly effortless undergraduate and graduate degrees available to people these days.

Attend class one night a week. Or work online and don't attend class at all.

Enjoy nine-week semesters.

Attend class the same night each week.

Just register once and have your whole program laid out for you.

Finish two years of undergraduate work in six to nine months.

Get a graduate degree in 18, 14, or even 12 months.

And these aren't just degrees from the University of Flagstaff (or whatever). Respectable (and often nationally renowned) universities offer these types of degree programs.

Putting pedagogy aside for a moment, I can't help but wonder how edifying such educational programs are for the students themselves.

Call me a traditionalist, but I'd argue that the value of a degree is (or rather should be) a function of how much sacrifice and work was involved in its attainment. The easier the degree is to get, the less valuable it is (or should be). After all, if a BA could be gotten by putting a quarter in a vending machine, then everyone would have one and it would have no value. It is the scarcity of the resource that makes it valuable. And it is the difficulty of attaining the resource that drives its scarcity.

So is a jiffy pop degree really worth anything? I mean, have you really earned a degree if you haven't had to:

• commit to rearranging your work schedule to attend class, worrying how business travel may screw you to the wall or how a change in a class’ exam schedule might conflict with a big meeting at work
• navigate the campus bookstore and registrar's office every semester, struggling to pick up books and identify in which room your class will meet
• deal with a sixteen-week semester stretching out before you with only three credits waiting at the end
• deal with 20 year old kids schlumping their way through a semester that you’re killing yourself to navigate
• sacrifice big, bloody chunks of your time away from your family. . . away from your life. . . to the gods of education
• work at it all for years (three, four, five or more) before hopefully graduating?

I hold no grudge against those who get their education from accelerated, on-line or non-traditional degree programs. I myself participate in evening school, which is a kind of non-traditional program in and of itself. I wish everyone a degree and a promotion. Two degrees, if it'll help.

I myself am not footing the bill for the lion’s share of my educational expenses, so I am perhaps missing out on the sacrificial benefit to be had from the financial struggle.

But I know that if I ever finish the degree I'm pursuing (which is continually in question), I'll enjoy a tremendous sense of accomplishment, looking back at the countless days, weeks, months and years spent in pursuit. And I'll look back over the likely seven or eight years of toil and struggle as being well worth it. I wonder about the jiffy-pop graduates.

I Don’t Think That Means What You Think It Means

Here in December of 2007, it is difficult not to hear and read about the burgeoning subprime crisis. This perfect fiscal subprime storm has led to startlingly high default rates on home mortgages. Subprime loans were issued back when the real estate market was fat, dumb and happy, and those subprime loans are now bearing rotten fruit.

Subprime, subprime, subprime!

It's semantics, I know, but it still bugs me. I’d guess that most folks believe that “subprime” refers to the interest rates of these loans. “Sub” means below, obviously. And “prime” clearly must refer to the mythical prime rate. So it must be that really low (subprime) loans were issued to people, getting them into loans they couldn’t afford once those rates adjusted, right?

Wrong. Within the mortgage industry, it is the borrower that the term “subprime” modifies. . . borrowers whose credit scores (generally below 620 or so) are so low, or whose debt-to-income ratios are so high as to make them unqualified to receive traditional loans at decent rates.

“Subprime” does not speak to the rates involved in the loans themselves. In a quirk of language, subprime loans are typically loans issued significantly above standard rates because the borrowers are unqualified for traditional, more favorable loans. Adjustable rates, balloon payments and other monkey business are common secondary characteristics of such loans.

Over time, media reports will continue to screw this up. Reports written by very knowledgeable financial experts and published in respectable outlets will be less than clear in the language they use. And fewer and fewer people will realize that “subprime” refers to the condition of the borrower and not to the loan rates themselves.

How To Help, or To Help at All?

I was parked in a McDonald's drive-thru in downtown St. Louis on November 20. A man walks up to my car window wearing worn clothing and broken down shoes. He motioned to his ear, mouthed something and handed me a crumpled note.

Without even reading the note, I already know what it will say: It'll say "I’m deaf and unable to speak, I’m homeless and without money, and I need just a few dollars to get [somewhere] where I can get help."

I know all of the cynical arguments for not giving this guy any money. "Any money you give him will just be used to buy drugs or alcohol," the cynics say. "He’s probably just faking being deaf as part of his scam anyway. He looks able-bodied enough to earn his own money. People shouldn’t have to endure being shaken down for money and made to feel guilty in a drive-thru lane."

I also know the caring, well-reasoned and well-meaning arguments for not giving this guy any money. Many experts argue that giving food or money to homeless individuals discourages them from going to shelters and charity centers where life-saving services are available. And getting the poor and homeless into contact with these vital sevices and selfless servants is the one proven way to affect positive outcomes for these individuals who almost universally have mental health issues, substance abuse issues or both.

So I know what the experts and the cynics say I shouldn't do. But I also know what some other pretty respectable folks say I (and we all) should do:

There are those who say to the poor that they seem to look to be in such good health: "You are so lazy! You could work. You are young. You have strong arms."

You don't know that it is God's pleasure for this poor person to go to you and ask for a handout. You show yourself as speaking against the will of God.

There are some who say: "Oh, how badly he uses it!"

May he do whatever he wants with it! The poor will be judged on the use they have made of their alms, and you will be judged on the very alms that you could have given but haven't.
St. John Vianney

I can safely dismiss the cynics who say the homeless aren't worthy of help; that's just not me. But how do I (or any of us) balance the discrepancy between what the intellectual and spiritual experts say we should do to help?