News to me

Okay, here's my top 10 list of rules for news organizations. Newspaper news is on the way out, with broadcast news on its tail. Cable news may be able to grab a large portion of that audience, but the internet is certainly the end game. But, as we head to the future we need to make some serious changes.

1. No more Kool-Aid references. Drinking the Kool-Aid is an astoundingly crass reference to a horrible mass suicide in Guayana in1979 by a group of cultists lead by Jim Jones . The idea is to compare people who are perceived to be strongly Republican or Democratic in political philosophy to these confused and misled people who died crinking cyanide laced punch due to blind adherence. Also the Kool-Aid people must be tired of being reminded of a tragedy they are linked to, but had nothing to do with.
   
2. Stop using the phrase Jump the Shark. This is a reference to an episode of Happy Days where the "Fonz*" jumps over a shark to prove some point of honor that has been lost in the history books, but the point is that the show had overstayed its welcome. To even understand this reference you have to be massively old, or at least have watched several seasons of Happy Days on TVLand. Enough Already!!
   
3. ______Gate. Watergate was a valid name for a scandal since a portion of the scandal occured within the Watergate Office complex. Since then any time a journalist wishes to be clever they just slap Gate on the end of whatever controversy is happening that week. This is no longer works and is just the product of lazy minds.
4. Who are the elite media anyway? If a couple of million of people watch your TV show or listen to your radio broadcast you are the elite media. Stop grousing about it.
5. No more Al-Quaeda #3 guy is dead stories. Another Arabic name we have never heard of whose death we are claiming is a victory in the war on terrorism. What about the names we have heard of -- Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Laden.
6. No more Bin Laden is dead stories. No more we know where he is stories. No more he is on the run stories. There has not been any credible information on him in years.
7. Also not dead Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Il. Until you have some real information stop publishing those rubbish rumors on the front page.
8. Until there is some concrete evidence, no more stories about Natalie Holloway, Caylee Anthony, or Madeline McCann. How much more additional misery can you pile on these families?
9. Are we still in Iraq? This was a huge story for years, but now that we are appparently having some success there seems to be little interest in the media to report it. How about a couple of positive stories?
10. And on a lighter note, the Philadelphia Phillies have won the World Series!! It would have been nice to get a day of headlines on this like other teams, but this great story went away way too quickly.

* FONZ hyperlink is a weak joke, but a worthy cause.