zachary ty hanson

I have been waiting since I was 11 to receive this email.All those blue envelopes I sent to Zac Hanson have not gone to waste! Long live 6th grade!!!!

busy

I’ve been busy readying up an unemployment adventure and a physical return to the place that birthed all the scorn and hatred for blue skied sunny days. I would love to spout steam about how the new G.I. Joe is an effort to lure in prospective republicans with images of a general issued soldier having some involvement with the Eiffel Tower falling over but instead I chose to notice a difference of opinion for two major dailies and how each newspaper’s bias was shown through the photos run on their front page yesterday for the big fucking news: YOU THOUGHT THAT HAVING A BLACK PRESIDENT WAS CRAZY, WHAT ABOUT A SECOND-GENERATION LATINA WHO HAS A DSABILITY (CHILDHOOD DIABETES) AS OUR NEXT SUPREME COURT JUDGE!!!

The Orange County Register published the front page news with a tan box around a headline that almost sounds like more of a warning than an announcement–”SOTOMAYOR CONFIRMED”–and a photo of the 55 year-old soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice scowling at the paper’s mostly-Republican audience. I have picked up copies of the Register at work over the last few years and have noticed the way that they demonize anything liberal, anything different than the white picket fence ideal, and pick and choose information to twist stories into their advantage. Here is today’s front page:

The Los Angeles Times on the other hand–God bless ‘em–chose to present a different story to its mostly-liberal audience. “Sotomayor will bring new perspective to Supreme Court,” it reads with a vastly different perspective of the situation drawn. Instead of instilling nonsensical dread like the Register’s inside story had–”I guess we’ll have to call her ‘Justice Sotomayor’ now”–the Times story gave a well-written news feature about the impact of this confirmation and what this means for government, politics and the future. Also, the photo used was not of her long-unused “I’m yelling at you” face, but of her Puerto Rican smile as she hugs adoring African-American fans and gets harassed by sychophantic Blackberry owners (the photo is tiny because LA Times deleted the original and all I got was this shitty thumbnail):

The differences in how news is presented can be seen in the writing and design choices of each publication and yesterday’s historic confirmation gave the papers another excuse show their political leanings. And while I understand as a business (yes, despite journalist code, newspapers are still businesses) it’s necessary to know your audience, maybe, but let’s meet somewhere in between Teen Beat-adoration and uncorroborated hatred. Let’s call it AcceptthatchangeisoccurrningandgetoveritLANDIA.