Pet peeve much? Absolutely

Look, we hate pissing all over someone else’s linguistics work, especially when they’re pointing 0ut an overused and subsequently undervalued word. Frequent readers of this site may be familiar with my own work in this field, “Cleaning Out the Language Gutters.”

And that’s not to say that John Blake of CNN wasn’t on the right path, but it’s hard to argue why a word is frequently used in inappropriate situations since he never bothered to define that word.

So, congratulations, John: from your hamfisted examples of Barack Obama using the word, to quotes from jackoffs realizing their “problem” and an O.J. Simpson reference, you absolutely dropped the ball on this one.

And the ‘Sensitivity in Headline Writing’ award goes to …

For sensitivity above and beyond what decency calls for.Anyone can write a heart-wrenching piece about a 40-year married couple, who had been together since prom, that were killed together in a catastrophe.

Maybe fewer could tug at the heartstrings further by describing how they had just finished volunteering with wounded soldiers beforehand.

And perhaps only the bastard child of Nicholas Sparks and Michael Bay would throw in that one of them helped save America on 9/11 by ordering fighter jets into the air that morning.

But with just one headline about them being “inseparable” when they died in a completely crushed together DC Metro train car, all that work is undone.

Congratulations, CNN.

(Just in case they change it, here’s a screenshot.)

Let’s play a game

We will give you three headlines, all about the same story. Try to name each news outlet.

  1. “Supreme Court to consider life in prison for juveniles”
  2. “Justices to hear appeals of lifers sentenced as teens”
  3. “Supreme Court to Hear Convicted Rapist’s Case”

The answers are after the jump. Continue reading Let’s play a game

Baby Joan Crawford

... too far?This just in: Mommy doesn’t love you.

We’ll be right back, but after the break, we’ll show you:

  • The broken condom that ruined Daddy’s life.
  • The now unusable “Send two boys to football camp, and the third gets in FREE!” coupon.
  • The bottle of Draino we debate pouring into your formula.

We’ll laugh about this in 20 years! (Well, the rest of us will.)

The McBournie Minute: Swine flu could be just what economy needs

We got tired of worrying about Iraq, mostly because it was messy and a lot of people just got tired of the protesters screaming about this and that all the time. Luckily, we got to jump on the green bandwagon, so we could worry about global warming/climate change instead. This was especially fun during the election season, because it enabled us to see where the candidates stood on an issue that they can do very little to affect in the first place.

But let’s face it, thinking about the world ending, Asian countries ceasing to exist, crops ruined, lack of oxygen, the increase of stronger hurricanes, snow in Las Vegas, heat waves in April, etc. can get downright depressing. It’s enough to make you want to go out and drive around with the air conditioning cranked until you can finally clear your head. Once again, we were provided with a new topic to scream about: the economy. Turns out we were in a recession for a year and never knew it. Cue the layoffs, bailouts and general concern about how people will be able to pay for their iPhone plans.

That got really old. A couple months ago pretty much everyone got tired of hearing about how a population equal to that of Wisconsin lost their jobs, so we asked our media to change its tune. That’s why we get stuff about being frugal now. (Did you know you can read newspapers online for free? 101 money-saving tips inside!) But there was a void. You felt it, didn’t you? It was the void of not having something to constantly worry about, aside from who is getting voted off American Idol. Luckily, we now have something: swine flu apparently happened over the weekend, because the news media are all over this story and why you should be very, very afraid. Continue reading The McBournie Minute: Swine flu could be just what economy needs

The McBournie Minute: Act like the media establishment you’re supposed to be

I’m a journalist in the real world. Professionally, I’ve been one for about three and a half years, before that, I had over four years in college and real world journalism experience–I just wasn’t getting paid anything you could live on. That being said, I hate television news media.

There’s nothing that gets me screaming at my TV than turning on CNN, FOX News or, yes, even MSNBC. I don’t think journalism is about looking good. I don’t believe you can get the story in frame and edited in time for your scheduled satellite uplink in the truck. I don’t believe flashy graphics and scare tactics are forms of information or public service. Most of all, I don’t believe the pundits do anything but tell you how you should think.

Nevertheless, it’s always hilarious to watch them copy each other. Over a year ago, CNN introduced iReport. For those of you unfamiliar, it lets you upload pictures, videos, and on occasion, text unedited for others to view and CNN to harvest when it needs something to kill some time. You don’t get paid, you don’t really get famous, but you do get something on the air. It sounds good in theory, but lately it’s devolved into something like YouTube, only with original content (OH SNAP!). Continue reading The McBournie Minute: Act like the media establishment you’re supposed to be

Cancer cures put on hold for more research into DUH news

Nothing to see here people. Move right along. Water is still wet. Grass is still green. Balls are still round and men still see women in bikinis as objects. How do we know this?

Because we have a surplus amount of lazy graduate student scientists.

Here’s a way to understand the study: Scarlett Johansson is washing her car in a bikini. Because you’re a dirty pervert, you watch her doing so from her lawn hedge. The purpose of the study is to show the difference between thinking, “Scarlett is washing her car. It must be dirty.” and “Wash that car, Scarlett. Oh yeah! So dirty!”

Basically, they’re saying the first one, you associate a passive activity, and prescribe reason and motivation to why she’s doing something. The second one makes the actions much more directly associated, applies that all motivations are sexual, and involves more dirty words running through your mind.

So, what does this mean? Since science is not actually trying to attempt to solve anything useful, like curing horrible diseases or building me a sweet robot body, henceforth, scientists should only be allowed to study rutabagas. It would be just as productive as what they’re doing now.

Like killing dogs? Head to Baghdad

If there’s one thing we all love, it’s war reporting. Whether it’s Edward R. Murrow hanging a microphone out his window during the bombing of London or Geraldo Rivera giving away troop positions by drawing in the sand, we just can’t get enough. We’ve got a piece of fine news reporting from CNN, oddly enough, it seems we’re winning the War on Animals in Iraq. Let’s listen in.

“The shotgun blast rips into the stray dog’s midsection, sending it tumbling over and over. Agonizing yelps echo through the streets as it tries to reach and bite at the gaping wound. Minutes later, the dog is dead.

“A few miles away, a puppy eats a piece of poisoned meat. Its body starts to twitch and spasm as the toxins kick in. It dies within 15 minutes.”

Boy howdy does that sound good! To our brave men and women in the service: tell us your story about how you’re helping us win the War on Animals. We’d be honored to feature it right here on SG. Thank you for your sacrifice.

CNN’s Rick Sanchez is high on crack

We never miss a chance to bash CNN. (Why? Because it’s fun and they link to us.) Apparently Twitter user Rick Sanchez, a reporter for CNN, had his account hacked by a phishing site. We still are not sure whether or not it has to do with one of his tweets yesterday.

“i am high on crack right now might not make it into work today”

Clearly the man was on something, he found himself unable to capitalize or even punctuate his tweet. Sanchez, this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs on Twitter. Any questions?

(I am legally obligated here to plug not only SG’s Twitter, but my own as well.)

But Sanchez wasn’t the only victim to this crime. More people who matter fell prey, like President-elect Barack Obama, Vice President-elect Britney Spears, and Fox News. Did you know that O’Reilly is gay? Apparently so. We here at SG are open-minded and applaud the pundit for coming out, particularly in his line of work. In following with his stance on homosexuality, O’Reilly will now check himself in to rehab/electroshock therapy until he is straight.

(Courtesy of Courtney P.)

President-elect Obama: Bailing out thirsty reporters

We found out during the campaign that the man who now is going to be our next president (how’s THAT for some fun grammar?) is not a bad guy to have at a bar. However, we now know he’s way cooler than we ever expected. Better yet, he knows journalists.

While on vacation in Hawaii, President-elect Barack Obama ran into some journalists at a snack bar while he was golfing. In an effort to shoo them away, he suggested they go to the bar and drink. Then he said he’d buy them a round if they went up to the bar (called the 19th hole on golf courses) and drank.

This shows amazing perception on Obama’s part, because (ethics be damned!) if there’s one thing more tempting to a reporter than alcohol, it’s free alcohol. And if there’s one thing more tempting than free alcohol, it’s a challenge to drink that free alcohol.

Yet, some namby pamby CNN reporter named Ed Henry, had to go and sound like our current teetotaler president.

“And just for the record: your faithful correspondent, while enjoying the wonders of Waikiki beach, never drinks — at least not on the job.”

Henry, you are a disgrace to your profession.