The USA - Am I Wrong???

[celsis]

I love San Francisco but I prefer to stay out of the city when I'm over. I love going to Amoeba, but the Haight is getting ever more weirder!

At least if I remain on the Delta, I can have a drink and a smoke without coming across too many health nuts!

[Soulmanure]

I just discovered a couple of good cigar bars in SF--you can actually sit down, have a smoke and a whiskey, and while away the hours with a friend or just in front of the bartender.

Also, there is an excellent tobacconist down on Market street around 2nd; one of the proprietors is a Brit, and the other smokes a pipe. It's all a bit pricey, but there are some outlets for the cigar smoker, fortunately.

Here's the tobacconist if yer ever in town: http://www.grantspipeshop.com/

And the cigar bar I went to: http://www.occidentalcigarclub.com/pics.html

[Robusto]

My relatives who have moved from New Mexico to California really don't like the uptightedness of California. They like their shooting and hunting and say that there are far more restrictions on those activities in California. I don't know anybody in the UK personally who owns a gun so their discussions and deliberations are fascinating.

[celsis]

I own two shotguns and used to own a couple of handguns in the 80s, pre Dunblane. I like clays and I used to like police pistol, but that's in the past unless I go back to California and that just ain't gonna happen!

[El Yanqui]

Thanks for the spots to smoke. I'll check those out if I can.
Worse weather in SF than London now.

[Lou3]

Actually I would say the majority of American media is moving more toward the entertainment market and away from the information provider role. Sad state of affairs really.

Yes, it's all about marketing. It seems that generic candy is all that is bought and sold these days.

On the last day of a finance course I took last spring, the professor said a few words about the decline of the Wall Street Journal. When a classmate asked him for a viable alternative for financial coverage, he answered with a bit of defeat in his voice, "there isn't one."

[Soulmanure]

Yes, it's all about marketing. It seems that generic candy is all that is bought and sold these days.

On the last day of a finance course I took last spring, the professor said a few words about the decline of the Wall Street Journal. When a classmate asked him for a viable alternative for financial coverage, he answered with a bit of defeat in his voice, "there isn't one."

That's a difficult pill to swallow--I'm curious how you in the UK compare your media to that of the U.S., which I find to be broadly stuck in the soundbite, talking-point loop.

[celsis]

That's a difficult pill to swallow--I'm curious how you in the UK compare your media to that of the U.S., which I find to be broadly stuck in the soundbite, talking-point loop.

In the UK, there are newspapers and NEWSPAPERS! the former are what we call redtops, tabloids with lots of pictures, no words over three syllables and large fonts, while the latter at least report worldwide news. Unfortunately, the latter sometimes take a political stance on the news also.

In Scotland, the two NEWSPAPERS tend to favour a unionist point of view, so I tend to scan them and then move to an online paper (while will maybe become hard copy) called the Caledonian Mercury. The CalMerc tend to take a non judgemental stance and op-eds on what is good for Scotland as opposed to the other papers who seem to op-ed on what's good for London!

All in all, I found the SF Chronicle to be a good paper, but I believe it's in trouble. Maybe because it reports the news?

[Soulmanure]

All in all, I found the SF Chronicle to be a good paper, but I believe it's in trouble. Maybe because it reports the news?

It's not particularly different here. In terms of newspapers, I think we have a fairly good supply, though it is diminishing. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both have a slant, left and right respectively, and the Washington Post tends to be a bit more in the middle. The LA Times used to be a good paper, but it faces what every other news force does--diminishing funds. The SF Chronicle is a bit of an aggregator--if you look closely, two thirds of its stories will be from the papers mentioned above. From what I can gather, one of the best print sources is the Christian Science Monitor.

But I was thinking more in terms of television news--here, aside from the PBS Newshour, there's not much but a bunch of people blasting opinions like they are profound facts, all of it filled with sound and fury. I find, when I catch it, that the BBC news is pretty good and much more in depth and reasoned in comparison to, say, what you get here on CNN on NBC.

[Lou3]

Although I'm not a Noam Chomsky groupie, I respect his Manufacturing Consent for exposing mainstream US newspapers for what they are: subsidiaries of corporate titans. I'm relieved to hear a lot of people being wise to the situation, but it creeps in nonetheless when it's 99% percent of one's surroundings.

Getting back to food, the US has a cultured segment of society that knows its cheese, wine, and other refinements. They aren't necessarily the upper crust elite, but just people who are curious and passionate enough to demand more out of life. Unfortunately, the mainstream retail experience tends to disregard this segment with seemingly extreme prejudice.

[El Yanqui]

Interesting shift in conversation. I went to journalism school in the States and work in advertising in London. I will say that the standards of journalism between the States and the UK is vastly different.

I love several papers/media outlets here and loathe others. But unfortunately, even the ones I love irritate me regularly with a lack of journalistic objectivity. Outlets in the States will slant one way or the other but they do tend to at least attempt to keep that to editorials. Not so much here.

I'm not saying it's all bad, but I do feel the BBC has a saintly aura it either hasn't earned or has let fall in the last 4 years; It's not the bastion of objectivity that it's made out to be elsewhere.

Anyway, it's interesting for me to have studied and work in media to see what's going on from both sides of the pond.

NB: I find the Daily Mail to have no redeeming qualities and Noam Chomsky to be a hypocritical attention whore. That way I get to put digs in on the left and right on both sides of the Atlantic.

[Soulmanure]

Outlets in the States will slant one way or the other but they do tend to at least attempt to keep that to editorials. Not so much here.

I'm not saying it's all bad, but I do feel the BBC has a saintly aura it either hasn't earned or has let fall in the last 4 years; It's not the bastion of objectivity that it's made out to be elsewhere.

You know, I read an interesting article by Michael Kinsley arguing against both the length and the content of much of what goes into print these days, and he pointed out something that's hard to notice but there if you break down some of the semantic content: much of the reporting itself is biased.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/01/cut-this-story/7823/

I'm curious--would you say the BBC is moving left or right? I would say that, either way, compared to our tv news programs, it's miles above.

[monkey66]

IMHO we no longer have 'news' providers (US or UK) we have 'media' sales. If you take an industry (UK at least) who's primary job was providing impartial reporting once a day and change the parameters to sell copy (print, web pages, radio, tv etc) 24hrs a day, against hundreds of rivals, the game is going to change.

For me I wish I could read 'news' (as best as we can tell unbiased reporting of a given story) and 'editorial opinion' (someone's opinion on a given story). Come the revolution it will be law to tag all stories with one or the other heading.

Back in the real world I ensure I read several versions of any story I have interest in and draw my opinion somewhere in the middle. Unfortunately this can still turn out to be a bollocks source of information because of web plagiarism (ie people re-writing other peoples stories).

The BBC has gone to the left IMHO, I hate it when public bodies pursue a political agenda but so many seem to

[celsis]

I would disagree about the BBC shifting to the left. I would theorise that it only seems that way because the country (UK) has shifted to the right.

My beef with the BBC is that the majority of news coverage on the "Six" is actually of no relevance to anyone outside of England. In Scotland, we don't need to know about what's happening in Leeds or London and don't care about football matches in the EPL. In fact, I would say that the maority of Scots don't even give a damn about the London Olympics.

Unfortunately, if you want to watch the international news, you have to wade through a sea of irrelevant pap before you get there. For example, when the SNP introduced the Referendum Paper in Scotland, it merited ten seconds on the "Six," despite it being probably the biggest thing to happen to the UK since 1707!

I used to enjoy the BBC news and still tune in for the international news, but at the moment, they are just a Londoncentric news station.