Hole 9

This is the lecture that I decided once and for all that I fully don't like the word newsworthy. It may be a little bit useful, but it just doesn't sound right. I didn't like visualness, 'sensationalisedation' (which was used) nor Judy McGregor. I did like celebrification though. Kind of like glorification, which is a good word.
I think it's hard to discern what people want to read and know versus what they should read and know. I know that Facebook is starting to show me everything it thinks I want to see, and same with Google. I don't think it's healthy to surround yourself with everything you like and not have a full scope of earthly happenings.
"News value is dictated by the prominence a story has been given" but its prominence is dictated by the new value. Something has to give. It's just one big ol' circle. Until someone in a big office decides he knows what I want to see. And there's one reason why I don't like the word newsworthy. People get the idea that it's how worthy something is to read about, but it's about how much a story is worth. Worth in the monetary sense. How many papers it will sell. Take, for example, #Kony. There are so many other happenings and interesting stories out there, but Kony became newsworthy. A mastermind homicidal child mass murderer, a cute kid talking to a camera and a drug rampage in San Diego. What more can you ask for to sell newspaper? I'd much rather read about anything else, however.


“News is what a chap
who doesn't care much
about anything wants to
read. And it's only news
until he's read it. After
that it's dead.”


Evelyn Waugh sounds like the type of bloke chap I'd like to meet. This one little quote struck such a deep chord in me that I was inspired to look him up on Wikipedia. A traveller, a writer, a schoolmaster and a reviewer. I want to read about this guy. Not only did he write Brideshead Revisited, but his great-great grandfather was called Lord Cockburn. There are two of the greatest claims to fame I have ever heard. His Wikipage made me think of a new word: prolificist. One who proliferates. It has its shortcomings but I quite enjoy the word.

Local stories really don't interest me. Apparently "If it's local it leads!" but I just don't see it. Maybe you have to be a certain age, or have to own more than 2 toothbrushes or spend more than $40 dollars when you go grocery shopping. I don't know. Do you owe more than 2 toothbrushes? If yes, do you care about local stories?
Maybe if there is a flood in my suburb, or rent of the area is going up because of the offshore price of coal-seam oil spills in the Stradbroke Nature reserve is going to deflate the price of lamb and XXXX at the IGA across the road, then yeah I might be interested. But Bligh opens school gate or Boy found after getting lost at school? Hey I just read that, and this is crazy, call me insensitive but I don't really care.
Now if it bleeds it leads - I can beleed that. The problem with that is, everything bleeds. There is so much bleeding going on that there's a bleed over load. The Red Cross is going crazy, blood is being spilled everywhere and what they would give to be able to scrape some of that off the streets. There's no use crying over spilt blood however.

It's strange how spilled and spilt have no determinable difference, apparently we can use them interchangeably.

Did you know that 1 in 3 people will need to receive foreign blood in their lifetime? But only 1 in 30 people will donate? If you, Barack and I all met up for toast and coffee one day - one of us will definitely need blood. Hopefully not at that particular moment, because that would be quite an interesting moment. A life-threatening interruption could threaten what could be an in-depth and worldly conversation.

Why do humans have an obsession with death? We go on and on about it to no end. Shakespeare had to be one of the worst. Or best, depending upon how you're looking at it. We've invented cults to satisfy our desire to know what is after death. Why is that? Do we feel a need to always be occupied? I like the idea of a good hard rest. Now I'm sounding like a whingy teen with nothing better to do than blather on about 'existentialism' because I just learnt about the word in some crappy magazine and I've named a album of photos on my indie instagram 'existentialia' because I edit all my photos through the indie settings on Picasa and wear stupid clothes and ride stupid bikes.

Call me old fashioned, but I'd like to see the newspaper around for a long time yet. Not only a cheap lining for a rat cage and a fuel to light the fireplace, it's a fuel for thought as well. Online journalism seems to be a cheap whore-out version of print media and it is making it easier for the corporate world to control what we see, in effect changing history...

... I've been watching "Illuminati" videos all day.

I'll leave you with this: How do you titillate an ocelot?

...

Oscillate it's tits a lot.