Buy The Numbers

Proof Readers???

Does anyone do even a cursory review before they hit Submit? You might think they've gone Euro where a comma is used as a decimal point, but then you must explain point three oh voter. Maybe a zero fell off the end and it is supposed to be 102,300. Could the comma be misplaced? Then it might be 10,230. No matter what, the effort to make something clear and accessible resulted in not being able to trust any of these numbers. 

When Is That?

The AJC recently reported that some federal workers have been notified that they will be laid off on June 31.

Forget Juneteenth

Anyone bat an eye at that? Does this mean they are NOT being laid off? After all, there is no 31st of June. Not this year, not any year. But this raises questions regarding the AJC. The obligatory [sic] does not follow the date as one would expect if the error were in the original quote. Of course that would require that the AJC reporter actually caught the error. If we run down that rabbit hole we should also consider that the original was not in error and the mistake was introduced by the reporter. Either way, you gotta wonder if the Department of Education has really been doing anything to improve education in America. 

Mis&Dis Information. It''s Not Just For The Internet

A recent OpEd piece penned by Rodney Bryant came with the big, bold headline that included "we must restrict automatic weapons." To be fair to Mr. Bryant, he probably did not have any say about the headline and likely this is the AJC in full propaganda form since Bryant's piece is all about banning SEMI-automatic weapons. Of course that is pretty mainstream leftist fare trodding their well  worn path to a permission society, where they are the only ones entitled to grant permission. Nothing new to see here.

But early on Bryant goes full left wingnut advocating a total end to our form of democracy:

"It's important to recognize that the Constitution is a living document that must be interpreted in the light of changing societal circumstances."

He is saying nothing short of "your vote, or the votes of those you elect to represent you are worthless." In effect, he is calling for an expiration date on your vote, a date of the elitists choosing to be determined by them in their own good time. Ratify the ERA? Well, we'll stick with that for a while, but, ya know, society is just soooo circumstantial, so in a couple of decades we'll let black robes wash away your wishes. And why does he, and others on the left, take this approach? Because the legal, the constitutional approach requires that broad swaths of society adopt their world view, and few have. Following the constitutional process to an amendment is, by their estimation, likely to fail so they will impose their minority will on the majority by other means. The constitutionality of those means is of no concern because in their world they have already erased that document from history and for all time. They only thing that matters is what they think.

Whatcha Think?

A recent AJC reprint of an opinion piece from afar was ostensibly about "critical thinking" in the context of "critical race theory." It is, unfortunately, an agenda piece with no symptoms of critical thinking whilst committing semantic war crimes which have become all too common. 

The first sin against words and meaning is one of omission: failure to define "critical thinking" as used in this context made more poignant by the fact the author chastises his rhetorical opponents for not defining "critical race theory" in their context. Even novice critical thinkers have alarm bells ringing on that one. 

So, let us put a plaster on that bullet wound. One source defines critical thinking as

it’s “thinking about thinking”—identifying, analyzing, and then fixing flaws in the way we think

Another offers this

Critical thinking is, in short, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking.

What these have in common is that critical thinking is inward, reflections on how the thinker is thinking in an effort to improve that thinking. What critical thinking is not is developing effective criticism of others' thinking. 

So, what about the false flag? Is critical thinking needed in our schools? Certainly. But this requires the kind of thinking skills one finds in mathematics and grammar. Logic and meaning. Thing long abandoned by our schools for being too hard. For the faculty. Therefore for the students. So yes, we need critical thinking in schools, in the workplace and in academia. Hell, we even need critical thinking in journalism, even the op-eds.

Where WERE You?

Where were you AJC? Where were you when WE needed you?

Someone in Buckhead institutes a Cityhood drive and you're all over it. Pen an exposé suggesting that something shady might be going on behind the curtains. Nothing concrete more like some hints that yet another carpetbagger, recently arrived, has come to the land of opportunists for his own benefit rather than that of the community at large. Especially when YOU decide how large a community is under discussion. When we had opaque non-profits making backroom deals and beneficiaries at least as obvious as what you now see in Buckhead, where were you? Where the hell were you? And why are you so lazy? Is it because you think voters are too stupid to understand what the faux cities really are? That if they vote for approval, then according to the very charter they are approving they will never have another meaningful vote? That they will be voting to hand their future over to bureaucrats who without any reason to pay attention to voters? It shouldn't be that hard for your fine investigative journalists to explain. They certainly have enough examples to learn from.

Then there is the whole "police sex scandal" kerfuffle. Not the porn operation in the Dunwoody Police Department. Not the self-investigation factually and actually indistinguishable from a cover-up. Not the whistleblowers. Nadda. With smoke pouring out of every orifice of city hall not one of your investigative reporters thought there might be something there. You know, like fire. Instead you sent at least three (given the article byline) right past Dunwoody city hall all the way out to Lawrenceville. Lawrenceville? Really? You have a raging dumpster fire in your backyard and instead of investigating you act like you're working for Jennifer "Truth Butcher" Boettcher as a PR press printing puff pieces. Are you guys playing on some stage where Dunwoody is a teacher's union and the AJC is in the role of the CDC? Or is this a case of when agendas align then everyone is a team player?

So...where the hell were you, where are you now, where are you going and when are you ever going to serve our community?

Cars, Votes And Guns

Hot on the heals of their ambitions to use the First Amendment as a platform for self-serving legislation they put on a full court press against the Second Amendment, specifically in a well-curated assault against the Constitutional Carry law wending its way through the Gold Dome. 

We get a hand-selected letter to the editor, reportedly from a former member of law enforcement that poses questions that are either rhetorical or founded in ignorance. Does the letter writer really not know how reciprocity works? Then we have the inevitable "cars require a license, why not a gun?" which definitely originates in the depths of ignorance. Continuing that line of thought you should need a First Amendment license from the government to operate a newspaper, right? More importantly, the Second Amendment is in the Bill of Rights, the first and inarguably most important of all the amendments. Why? Because they fulfill two goals: they define inalienable rights; and they explicitly prohibit government infringement of those rights. This is why anyone, even non-citizens and illegal aliens enjoy those rights and protections but not the vote. Which comes to the last front in their assault against the Constitution: a false analogy suggesting that voting and Second Amendment rights are somehow equivalent. That author either knows that is not true and is intentionally misleading or might need to spend a little time on history or perhaps reading the Federalist Papers. 

Is this really a media outlet or a propaganda engine? Does it really deserve a legal carve-out?

Save The Dinosaurs

Traditional media (they like to call themselves "journalists") is fossilized, but wants the government to jump to their aid even invoking the First Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;..."

No law abridging the freedom of the press is a far, far cry from "there oughta be a law that protects us from our vendors" in, what did Pelosi call it, a "free market economy." What the AJC  neglected to point out in there "save our asses" rant against online advertising is that there is competition in that market, with the top two being Google vs Adobe. They could choose either one but this would require that they come into the 21st century and embrace the business models of the information age. Unfortunately their thinking is mired in the past. 

Their model is to sell adverts in a "market" without regard to whether or not anyone actually pays attention to that ad. Sometimes they pump up the prices based on the overall size of the market claiming to dominate high value metro regions. Yet, hypocritically, they have the chutzpah to rail against what they incorrectly claim to be monopolistic characteristics of the online ad vendors. Really? What exactly is the competitive newspaper in the Atlanta metro region? And doesn't the AJC's monopoly empower them to spout whatever agenda-driven propaganda they wish? Isn't that what they do?

AJC "Misinformation"

Mainstream media is notoriously left lilting noted for "coloring" their language in support of their deeply held beliefs. Sometimes is so smacks of propaganda that it would, by any objective measure, constitute cancel-worthy misinformation for any social media censors. They injected a prize nugget in an article about the Remington headquarters relocation to Georgia:

'an attention-grabbing TV ad that showed him aiming a firearm toward "Jake,"'

where in this case "him" is Governor Kemp, who has been labeled "governor shotgun" in the AJC. True colors shining through? You may be wondering why they would take a hit after the play is over as anyone else might risk a personal foul, but this is the AJC and they own the refs (think Notre Dame). Hell, they think they ARE the refs. But they did cross a line...a hit out of bounds.

They made interesting choices. Now, it is "firearm" when previous references had more precisely noted it was a shotgun. Then "toward" rather than the previous "at" which while completely incorrect it had been the term. Perhaps the biggest lie is "aim" as Kemp never shouldered the shotgun and never sighted down the barrel, two things you do when you actually aim a shotgun (read the AJC puff-piece on Barnsley Gardens). Only some irresponsible left-wing-nut like a certain well-known actor actually shoots from the hip. At people.

Perhaps the vagueness is to provide a "parsing semantics" escape clause should someone suggest they've laid out egregious misinformation, but being legacy media they probably don't care about social media, cancelled or not. And you may have noticed it is VERY easy to sign up for an AJC subscription online but actually impossible to cancel online. Seems like every part of their operation is skewed to our disadvantage.

The Real, Stupid News

The AJC doth protest too much.

Credible? Compelling? Complete? Really?

Credible? More like incredible. Compelling? Well, incessant, embedded editorializing only goes so far. Complete? Really? More like completely contradictory:

Which is it? 41? Or 44?

By the numbers? Wow! In just a couple square inches of ink the AJC has undermined all the credibility they claim. If they cannot get these simple facts straight how can any thinking creature believe that the editorial screeds masquerading as "real news" in any way resemble informed opinions? Hold this up against their current rants about real news and journalism alongside their forced admission of engaging in a media frenzy that destroyed Richard Jewell's reputation. For the AJC, facts have always been elusive. 

Attacking Loeffler

Isakson is still in the midst of his Accolade Tour and she isn't even sworn in and yet the AJC is on the attack. You'd think she were Richard Jewell. Their complaint is that being a successful businesswoman she might now be in a position to further her interests as a sitting US Senator.

Nothing new there.

Senators have a long history of using their positions for personal gain. And we're not just talking about Biden leveraging his position to get his kid a job or Schumer's daughter have a sweet job at Facebook. We're talking about real money from real influence. They do it so well that they outperform corporate insiders.

It got so egregious that they were forced into legislation in 2012 that on the surface prohibits trading on their privilege but like all legislation they have ensured it is more for show than for go. As recently as this September reputable rags have reported that Senators are still monetizing their positions. And where has the AJC been all this time? Why now? Why this woman? Sounds like an agenda. Yet when speaking out the other side of their face they want us to believe they are legitimate sources of the Real News. Have they learned nothing since 1996?

Another Mystery Solved

It was Monday morning. About a week ago. Tried to access the online version of the AJC. After much spinning of the wheel abject failure is acknowledged.

Probably because the morning update locked the editions list with a write semaphore which blocked the read necessary to allow access. Sloppy programming. But how can this happen? Well there is the rest of the story.

Check out the "Exception Details." Notice anything disturbing? That's right, they're not only using .Net, they have a Win32Exception. On a foundation of suboptimal technology they've managed to build a fragile application all but guaranteed to fail.

If you've actually read the AJC is there really any surprise?

Journalist, Heal Thyself

This week our collective school marm, Maureen Downey, asks us to ponder why we shame girls for their bodies. Perhaps Maureen should read the paper she writes for as once a week (at least) they publish a body-shaming article of their own. They print this under the title of "Success story" where folks brag about how much weight they've lost, how they did it and how long they've kept their weight under control. To complete the body shaming of readers unable to control their portly selves they include both before and after photos. This is just filled with micro (or given the "gravitas" of their targets, perhaps "macro") aggressions. And given that Maureen's domain is education, the home turf of safe spaces, trigger words and micro-aggressions, her insensitivity is appalling.

Unbelievable. Untrustworthy.

The nation's newspaper editorial pages have recently been home to a never-ending stream of screeds ostensibly defending the Fourth Estate with claims that journalists are foundational to a free society and that they, and only they provide reliable information. We are to trust them because they tell us to.

But they cannot be trusted because the information they spew is as unreliable as it is inaccurate. Just a single case in point is a recent article published in the AJC with this headline:

Infant dies in multi-car crash

followed by a sub-head of:

Ambulance carrying baby involved in collision on I-285.

After the by-line the author leads with "An infant died following a multi-vehicle crash on I-285 in Dunwoody on Monday morning."

Pretty horrific isn't it? A wreck involving an ambulance in which a baby dies. The facts are indeed quite tragic, they are just now what you garner by reading the headlines and first paragraph. As it turns out the baby did die, but only after reaching the hospital being transported from the wreck by DeKalb Fire. And the baby's died "from causes not likely related to the crash."

So the next time someone shame-splains to you about how critical journalists are to an informed public just point them to a self-contradictory "news" article like this. The AJC prints them every day.

THIS Is The AJC

$13+/mo, added insult of ads to get THIS

AJC ePaper eFail

eFail as in "Epic Fail." Their "ePaper" is the so-called "online version" of the paper and it is undeniably crap. The main problem is that it looks more like Illya Kuryakin used his mini-spy-cam to photograph pages to put online that it does an actual 21st century online presentation of content. But pictures remain worth thousands of words.

Typical Front Page - Just Like The Print Edition

Let's look into that article the editors think warrant front page coverage. Still looks like the photocopy that it really is.

A16? Really? Not Even A Hyperlink?!!?

Yes. Continued on A16. Annoying in newsprint, especially when chopped in mid-sentence. Surely this wouldn't happen in the article view. But let's take note of where the article is hacked. Just in case.

What You Get When You Click On The Article

Scrolling down to the bottom of the article, this is what'll you'll see.

Hacked In EXACTLY The Same Location

That's right! You get to know which article you're looking at--sorta, because as it turns out the remainder of THIS article is actually listed as a separate article. From a reader's point of view it may as well be. But good luck finding it because there is not a hyper-link to the continuation. From the so-called article view you can go to the next/previous "article" or you can exit to the as-printed view and navigate to the faux-printed page containing the rest of the article and then...well, you get the idea. It sucks.

Maybe there is a work-around. What if you try printing the article. Surely that would print the entire article and not just a hacked up piece. Maybe print-preview is a way to read an article.

Printing Is Also The Hacked-To-Pieces Article

No such luck. Perhaps the iOS version sucks much less. Not really. Similar presentation, but even with the latest version of the app (29 May 18) it repeatedly crashes.

Now let's keep in mind that these articles are not written in two-part disharmony. The good folks running the AJC actually do this. Why? Because the luddites running the show only understand newsprint and that's the way it has always been done. What you see when you look at the AJC ePaper is them giving the finger to the entire Information Age.

And there are a couple of things that make this particularly annoying. Not only are you assaulted by the ads in the faux-print, you actually pay real dollars, every month for the displeasure. Then there is the hypocrisy. This is the "news" outlet that blasted the Kasim Reed machine for intentionally putting roadblocks between public information and the AJC--self-appointed representatives of "the public."  If you are actually trying to read this ePaper, how is the AJC really any different?

Word Smatter

Or do they? Matter? Well the AJC offers examples where they disagree. Pictures are worth thousands of words and the AJC seems to be on a limited quota.

Random Words

AJC Says THIS Is Sex

Justice Sotomayor Is A Distant Cousin

The AJC Has Uncovered That Our Mayor Is A Guy

Dangerous Rice

RanOutOfSpaces

This has been the first in an observational series on "How Technology Has Eluded The AJC."