This blog’s reading level: Elementary School

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Elementary_schoolI checked this a couple of years ago with the same results. The reading level of smays.com is elementary school, according to this website. The high end of the scale goes up college (maybe grad school?) and I think elementary school is the low end (do pre-schoolers read?).

I know it doesn’t sound like it, but I think it might be a good thing to write at a level that third graders can follow. I assure you, I’m not trying to write down to anyone. The words you read are the ones in hear in my head. Hmm. See smays blog. Blog smays, blog.

“When was the last time you saw a dead American soldier on TV?”

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FlagdrapedcoffiinI was talking with a co-worker about Lara Logan’s (CBS Chief Foreign Correspondent) recent appearance on The Daily Show. She posed the question, “When was the last time you saw a dead American soldier on TV?” She was making the point that media in the U. S. has been MIA on the war in Iraq (except for that victorious march into Baghdad).

My co-worker’s take was: “The only reason to show a dead American soldier would be to turn someone against the war.”

Or maybe that war is news and death is part of the story?

Actually, I didn’t have a response. I can understand that view coming from W or Rumsfeld (back in the day). But how many citizens feel the same? How many would rather not to see the bloody reality of war on their TV screens?

By this logic, we also shouldn’t be seeing the critically wounded at Walter Reed. Or can we translate missing limbs to a “don’t-let-their-sacrifices-be-in-vain” message?

So I’m asking myself why we saw more dead troops during the Viet Nam war, and it came to me. We had lots of reporters on the front lines in that war. But not so many on the mean streets of Baghdad.

In the old days, you could make a career filing reports from the front lines. Sure, you could shot, but you weren’t likely to wind up the star of a YouTube beheading video.

Naw, American journalism took a pass on this war. Better to let the Brits cover this one.

Crackberry cold turkey

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“A couple of weeks ago, ABC News writers were forced to surrender their BlackBerry hand-held devices when the network clashed with the guild over after-hours work. According to people familiar with the situation, ABC asked writers and producers to sign a waiver acknowledging that they may use their BlackBerrys to monitor and compose work-related e-mail after normal working hours. When the writers guild advised its members not to sign, the network took the BlackBerrys away.” [Broadcasting & Cable]

This is one of the reasons I’ve always owned my own laptops (and most other work-related) toys. Even though the company would have probably provided some of these. I take the “carpenter’s tools” view. I know that all hammers are not the same. I want the best.

Obama’s management style sounds familiar

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This NYT story reminded me one of my favorite management stories (The Cleanest Tastee Freeze in Town). A couple of grafs in particular:

“No state was more important to his candidacy than Iowa, but when (Senator Obama) arrived there for campaign visits he stopped aides who tried to give detailed accounts of developments.”

“I’d get in the car with him and talk a mile a minute,” recalled Paul Tewes, who was the campaign’s state director. Mr. Tewes recalled that on the candidate’s fifth visit to the state, Mr. Obama interrupted one of his detailed updates, saying: “You know what, Paul? All I want from you is for you to do your best, and I trust you and you know what you’re doing.”

In the years that I reported to Clyde Lear, I heard him say (to me and others) almost those exact words, more times than I can count. I’ve heard many talk the talk in this regard, but only a few that could walk the walk. Nice to know Senator O is one of them.

“This blogging stuff”

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Springfield Mayor Tom Carlson got all Rottweiler’y on the local press recently and among his complaints, anonymous bloggers:

“On top of that, we have this Internet thing that’s going on now, this blogging stuff. Used to be, if you wanted to say something, you had to put your name it … now, there’s this anonymous character assassination that’s encouraged, in order to sell newspapers or other media outlets.”

It’s been a while since I heard/saw “this Internet thing.” One of my favorite expressions. But His Honor and I do agree on the anonymous blogging issue. He has no way of knowing if the blogger who is ripping him a new one is his opponent. And we have know way of knowing if the blogger who supports his every action is his press secretary.

America’s prison for terrorists often held the wrong men

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An eight-month McClatchy investigation of the detention system created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has found that the U.S. imprisoned innocent men, subjected them to abuse, stripped them of their legal rights and allowed Islamic militants to turn the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba into a school for jihad.

“The McClatchy investigation found that top Bush administration officials knew within months of opening the Guantanamo detention center that many of the prisoners there weren’t “the worst of the worst.” From the moment that Guantanamo opened in early 2002, former Secretary of the Army Thomas White said, it was obvious that at least a third of the population didn’t belong there.”

Stories like this one — and the way those accused respond to them — raise a troubling (to me) question about American journalism. Why can’t we have one news organization that everyone can agree is factual and fair. Just one. “Truthiness” is no longer a joke.

Somewhere in the White House and the Pentagon, men and women are figuring out ways to discredit this story and the people who reported it. I won’t try to list the tactics they employee because we are all too familiar with them.

And those who chose not to believe stories like this one need only the flimsiest excuse (“There goes the Liberal Media again.” or “Fox News says it’s not true.”).

Remember how skeptical the world was of the claims by German citizens that they didn’t know what was going on in the concentration camps?

“Whoa! Hold on there smays.com! You aren’t comparing Guantanamo to Auschwitz are you?”

No. I’m talking about what we, the American people, allow our government to do on our behalf. If we’ve been holding hundreds of innocent men for five or six years and –in some cases– torturing (I know, I know… water boarding is not torture) them, will our best explanation be, “We were at war.”

Ich bin beschämt

Radio for the blind and print-disabled

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The Kansas Audio-Reader Network is “a reading and information service for blind, visually impaired, and print disabled individuals in Kansas and western Missouri. Services are offered free of charge to anyone in our listening area who is unable to read normal printed material.”

AUDIO: Excerpt from audio-reader network 6 min MP3

This would seem to be an invaluable service for those who cannot read a newspaper. I wonder what impact, if any, the Internet is having on services like this. I understand that not everyone has a computer and access to the web but that number is shrinking daily.

I assume the blind or visually impaired can have the text on any web page translated to spoken audio. While this would give the user more control over the information she consumes, it might be more… entertaining? …to have a human read it aloud. Or why not have both.