Image by Kent Buckley
We’ve been trying to do big things with Media Farm. Sure, first and foremost we report from the id and sewer of the media diaspora (sorry if we used that word wrong; like most people, we don’t actually know what it means), but in recent weeks and months we’ve focused on reporting at length out of necessity, as was the case with our extensive update on the reform of public records laws in Mass. We’re working on some further updates on that front, so in the meantime here are two snippets—one that serves as an appropriate metaphor for all national media these past few weeks, and another meant to represent all that is currently unholy on the Boston newsscape.
TRUMP DAY
We’re afraid that if political virus Donald Trump is a pile of shit, we’re among the many flies who can’t stop jamming our eyeballs into the sludge spelunking for the foulest kernels. A bigot with no limits or shutoff valve, this past week the GOP hopeful managed to triple and quadruple down on the same absurd claims about Muslims he’s been making for months—reporters, of course, returned to Trump’s trough for his latest one-liners—while also putting down people with physical disabilities, specifically by mocking New York Times writer Serge Kovaleski’s chronic arm condition. Credit must be given where it’s due though, and this time Trump’s response to criticism hit a holy nexus of conceit and insincerity.
“Serge Kovaleski must think a lot of himself if he thinks I remember him from decades ago—if I ever met him at all, which I doubt I did,” Trump told inquiring reporters. “He should stop using his disability to grandstand and get back to reporting for a newspaper that is rapidly going down the tubes.” And here’s the icing on his dumb cake: “Despite having one of the all-time great memories I certainly do not remember him.” For that one, we pledge to avoid mentioning Trump’s name for two issues or until he positively defecates in a disabled baby’s mouth in public. Whichever comes first.
HUMP DAY
Speaking of temporary moratoriums to avoid repeating the banal and obvious … how long is too long to avoid flogging Boston.com? It’s not nice to criticize a publication during an identity crisis, and considering the speed at which things generally move on Morrissey Boulevard, Humpty Dumpty still ain’t been put back together since the purge in September. At the same time, maybe BDC needs some nudging, because this incredibly sorry headline and kicker appeared under their logo last week: “The lines formed early for Black Friday 2015. Some savvy shoppers showed up outside retails [sic] stores on Thanksgiving afternoon.”
No one needs such an article—not shoppers, not retailers, not even those of us who like watching videos of Black Friday bumpkins beating one another over flatscreens despite knowing fully well that such voyeurism constitutes shameless classism. This isn’t news, nor is it interesting, but it does provide an opportunity. Editors, or whoever’s running BDC these days, should print out said Black Friday pooplet, and hang it on the wall for all of the reporters to see. Because if they keep churning out that level of inconsequential garbage, it will be the content farmers—not managers who represent the mothership and distance themselves when it is convenient—who end up on the unemployment line.
Dig Staff means this article was a collaborative effort. Teamwork, as we like to call it.
