This is one of those posts that isn't really funny (sorry, Noelle's mom). Instead, it's one of those, "how dumb do they think we are?" posts.In today's paper was a story about how more and more people are living in RVs and cars in California, because "of the foreclosure crisis and shaky economy." This is sad. Not trying to be funny, here, it really is sad. Read it here.
The reporter even interviews one of the people living in her RV--Darlene Knoll. They put her picture in the article, with a nice caption that reads, "Darlene Knoll, 53, lives in a battered 1978 motor home in Los Angeles with five dogs after losing her job and home five years ago..."
In other words, Darlene lost her home back when the economy was humming along, jobs were plentiful, and housing prices and the stock market were going up. She was living in her mobile home three full years before the housing crisis began.
So, if this is such a big crisis, why is Darlene the only person who was interviewed for the article? How exactly is Darlene representative of the trend? Or is this a case of a bad reporter, finding a single tragedy, and trying to shoe-horn it into a macro-narrative that has nothing to do with reality?
The AP doesn't say who the reporter is. But it's pretty obvious what he/she is: dumb, irresponsible, and manipulative. No wonder newspapers are losing subscribers and readers.
1 comment:
no need to apologize, my mom will now love your blog even more because you a) ripped on the l.a. times, a paper which she subscribed to for 30+ years as an angelino, a paper which i saw her throw down in digust on a regular basis, and b) she will agree with you 100% on your summary of this reporter and his story's human interest subject. the l.a. times is losing subscribers faster than nuevo leon is losing its natives.
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