On the media: the tabloidification of American news

Home In All Lands: Helmet head: your brain is worth the investment

Whenever I see groups of visitors being led around campus on admissions tours, I wonder about the kinds of things that they must notice as they walk around Bowdoin’s campus. What do they think about the Quad? Do they think—as I do—that Smith Union is a little too bright and its colors a little too garish? Are they frightened by the thunder of basketball being played in Sargent Gym? They inevitably will start thinking about the cost of going to a school like Bowdoin. Going to college in the United States isn’t cheap; Bowdoin is certainly no exception. So you will forgive my surprise when I see people racing around campus at breakneck speeds, endangering the brains they have invested in so dearly: helmet-wearing cyclists are few and far between at Bowdoin. “Well if they don’t need to use their brains, they don’t need helmets!” quipped one professor who always wears a helmet when cycling. If we assume that the cost of a Bowdoin education is related to the value of your brain, then your cerebral matter is quite valuable indeed. For argument’s sake, let’s say that four years at Bowdoin costs $200,000. And let’s just say that this represents the approximate value of your brain. If you owned something of a comparable value—say, an expensive car, a house, a small yacht or a light aircraft—I’d guess that you would try to protect your property. So why can’t you afford the same protection for your head? There’s no denying that helmets are effective. In a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that wearing a helmet reduces “the risk of head injury by 85 percent and brain injury by 88 percent.” Injuries to your legs and arms can often be healed. But severe trauma to your head is far more dangerous. According to a report from 1996-2005 by the New York City Department of Transportation from, 97 percent of cyclists who died following an accident weren’t wearing a helmet. Every year, across America, hundreds of people die because “helmets are too expensive.” Because “helmets are uncomfortable.” Because “helmets can’t protect me.” I don’t mean to say that a helmet is some kind of panacea. Like wearing a seatbelt when you’re driving, donning a helmet will not immunize you against injury or prevent you from dying. Yet it is clear that wearing a helmet largely increases your chances of surviving an accident. Cycling accidents happen all the time and not just out on the street. Last year, I witnessed a student from Brunswick High School hit a squirrel while cycling at some speed across the Quad. He flipped over the handlebars and landed on the path. By some stroke of luck, he walked away with only a few scratches. I shudder to think what might have happened had he not been wearing a helmet. Let me be clear: I have nothing against cycling, nor do I wish to force helmets onto your heads. There’s nothing wrong about not wearing a helmet. You are all adults and are quite capable of making your own decisions. But all of you have exceptional minds: you are Bowdoin students after all. Wouldn’t it be an incredible shame if it all went to waste?
Whenever I see groups of visitors being led around campus on admissions tours, I wonder about the kinds of things that they must notice as they walk around Bowdoin’s campus. What do they think about the Quad? Do they think—as I do—that Smith Union is a little too bright and its colors a little too garish? Are they frightened by the thunder of basketball being played in Sargent Gym?
They inevitably will start thinking about the cost of going to a school like Bowdoin. Going to college in the United States isn’t cheap; Bowdoin is certainly no exception. So you will forgive my surprise when I see people racing around campus at breakneck speeds, endangering the brains they have invested in so dearly: helmet-wearing cyclists are few and far between at Bowdoin.
“Well if they don’t need to use their brains, they don’t need helmets!” quipped one professor who always wears a helmet when cycling. If we assume that the cost of a Bowdoin education is related to the value of your brain, then your cerebral matter is quite valuable indeed. For argument’s sake, let’s say that four years at Bowdoin costs $200,000. And let’s just say that this represents the approximate value of your brain. If you owned something of a comparable value—say, an expensive car, a house, a small yacht or a light aircraft—I’d guess that you would try to protect your property. So why can’t you afford the same protection for your head?

Home In All Lands: Studying abroad: U.S. politics must learn from U.K.

Although the next presidential election was over four years away, the whisperings about 2016 started on the Sunday political shows in the weeks following President Obama’s reelection in November 2012.
Thankfully, more pressing matters soon turned the attention of the TV folks elsewhere. Last year was, after all, quite agitated from a political perspective: important elements of the Affordable Care Act began to be implemented; the government shut down; and key sections of the Defense of Marriage Act were ruled unconstitutional.
But in the new year, the media has already turned its gaze to the next election drama. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday, host David Gregory asked Mitt Romney if he intended to attempt another run for the Oval Office in 2016. Some days earlier, former Florida governor Jeb Bush also hinted at the possibility that he might run for the highest office in the land, following in the footsteps of his father and brother. Several Democrats, too, have expressed an interest in making a move for the White House.

Home In All Lands

On the media: the tabloidification of American news

Broadcast news networks have set a standard of partisan media, giving a public seeking objective news coverage little option but to turn to foreign television outlets.

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

Jean-Paul Honegger

Columnist

January 31, 2014

Over the course of my nearly three years at Bowdoin, I have become used to many things about life in the United States. Midway through my junior year, I’m pleased to report that I have a basic understanding of temperatures in Fahrenheit (although I admit I still prefer Celsius by far). I am no longer baffled by heights in feet and inches, nor are pounds and ounces as mystifying as they used to be. But while my understanding of the various systems of measurement has increased, there are still aspects of American life that confuse me and will continue to do so. As you may have read in my columns over the years, these are questions as far ranging as the dearth of decent public transportation, the widespread (and continued) use of the death penalty, the preposterously high drinking age—not to mention the continued existence of my nemesis, the penny.

I have the good fortune to write for an apolitical newspaper, which allows me considerable leeway when it comes to choosing topics for my columns. The same is essentially true for columnists who write for major newspapers like the New York Times. But you don’t read the Times or USA Today for the opinion section. You do so for the quality of the reporting. If only the same could be said of television news. It is a tragedy that in America today there is no major news channel that actually broadcasts news.

The four biggest news channels are, according to variety.com, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and HLN (a network affiliated with CNN). Of these, Fox News and MSNBC are the least concerned with broadcasting objective news. Instead, both channels—which cater to conservative and liberal audiences, respectively—are populated by talking heads who use news stories for the sole purpose of making political comments. Fox News obsesses over being outraged about anything that President Obama does. The MSNBC modus operandi seems to be based around being outraged about almost anything the Republican Party does. This is not to say that their outrage is misplaced. Every person is undoubtedly entitled to his or her own political views. But it is certainly a stretch to characterise either MSNBC or Fox News as “news” channels. A news organization should be as apolitical as possible and should report the news objectively.

The reason that newspapers have an opinion section is to provide readers with an area where they can expect to read opinionated pieces and feel that that the rest of the newspaper is only interested in providing the facts. MSNBC and Fox News, by contrast, are dominated by opinion and nothing else. And the other two big channels are little better. HLN (an initialism for “Headline News”) is dominated by tabloid-esque journalism and is the preferred stalking ground for the likes of Nancy Grace, a controversial (as well as loud) legal commentator. Ah—but you say—what of CNN? It is true that of the big four “news” networks, in my opinion, CNN is the least politically involved of them all. CNN is, after all, the network that’s first on the ground whenever a disaster or terrible cataclysm takes place. But even the venerable cable news giant finds itself being taken in by the sensationalism of the day. Many hours are spent with cameras pointed to the entrances of courthouses, as journalists chatter about what may or may not be happening within, occasionally shutting up to allow a press conference to happen, before they resume their inane conversation.

All these networks are also disappointing when it comes to their coverage of events that take place outside the confines of the United States. America is a big country and so a lot of newsworthy moments happen here every day. That fact alone should not prevent at least some coverage of the key moments from across the globe.

Maybe it’s just me, but I find the absence of any decent news network to be very disheartening. You do have other options in RussiaToday (although that station is essentially a propaganda arm of the Russian government), Al-Jazeera America, BBC World and France24, to name a few. But not all cable providers give you access to these foreign viewpoints and, besides, it is rather strange to rely upon a foreign news service to be informed about what’s going on in your own country. Ideally—both for the sake of the viewing public and for the cause of television journalists across America—the establishment of a respectable, fair and objective channel devoted to reporting the news would considerably improve the media landscape. It would be devoted to American issues, certainly, but it would not ignore the fact that there is a wider world out there. It would not shy away from discussing politics, but would have politics not be the focus of its broadcasts.

Whether or not the American public wants this kind of channel is a different question entirely. Alas, the reason that MSNBC, Fox News, HLN and CNN do so well in comparison to their foreign counterparts is that they are pandering to what the viewers want to see. Before my ideal can even be implemented, there needs to be a shift in viewing habits and that, my friends, starts with you.

Correction, January 31: HCN is an initialism, not an acronym.

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