Yup, getting worse and worse at writing into this thing. This week and last week have been mad in terms of work. Too much. I think I'm too nice, don't say no often enough. Well that's only a part of it - this week I'm teaching a 5-day course in 3 days, and only found out toward the end of the first day. Fun, eh? I've never talked so fast in my life.
I'm thinking of becoming a politician. They talk shite for hours on end too. I might be good at that. But I'm edging more and more in the direction of management. I like the challenge of getting a team moving in the right direction with the right attitude. It's something definitely lacking in this place anyway. The problem with here is it's practically a dead-end job. Ah, well. Must move.... Management's a toughie to break into in technology. The easiest break into tech management I saw was a guy in my last job, he started as a supermarket trainee manager, did some course, then left, did a computer course, and ended up being an IT manager quite quickly. The only thing wrong there is that IT management is very different from supermarket management. I've heard it said that leading a team of programmers is like herding cats. Hmmm.
I think I have lots to say, but not really time to say it. My trainee for the day has just arrived, and is sitting opposite me :-) I suppose that means I'll be back later.
posted by Jeremy Smyth 09:31 |
We seem to be preaching to the converted. A small band of like-minded people listening to each others' radio shows, reading emails we send to each other, linking to the same controversial websites. Yet the US government and associated media seem to have it sewn up as far as the general population is concerned. I mean people sitting down and watching Eastenders, people reading the Star and Evening Herald, people reading the Times and Independent, who don't necessarily have the time or inclination to think beyond what they read.
Yes, there are people like Fisk, Chomsky, to a lesser extent Dunphy, O'Toole who opine about the atrocities carried out in the name of western democracy and liberation that make currently highlighted "terrorist" attacks pale in comparison. But these commentators are viewed as extremists, leftists, by many in the general populace, and in the general media.
How can we, the interested Joe Soaps of this world, help to get the interest of the Joe Soaps who don't know or don't care about things beyond the six o'clock news and the first 5 pages of our newspapers?
I was listening to the radio the other day, and suddenly got very upset at a realisation about journalists. Although some are men and women of great integrity, the vast majority of foot soldiers and lieutenants in our newspapers and behind desks in the other sections of our media are simply on the lookout for the next big thing, a scoop. It's all a big marketing campaign - give them what they think they want to know, and if they don't know what they want to know, tell them. It's all to do with sensationalism. Joe Journo will take the heart-wrenching story of a dialysis patient in Rathfarnham before a story of 100,000 black Sudanese muslims dead from the acts of the Free World.
I might just be getting older, but I remember a time when the evening herald was less sensational. Possibly still more populist than the broadsheets of the day, but not quite at the tabloid level it is at now. What happened? Marketing. Irish people like the simple reality of being spoonfed. Even me. It's easier to react than to research. So what can we do to help our family, neighbours, workmates, etc. understand the balances involved between what we get spoonfed to us, and what is actually happening?
Rant over.
posted by Jeremy Smyth 12:07 |