Shameless Journalism

This morning's top "news" story on CNN:

Chevrolet Malibu wins Car of the Year

General Motors' Chevrolet Malibu mid-size sedan, radically redesigned for the 2008 model year, won the North American Car of the Year Award today at the first media preview day for the Detroit Auto Show.

This is not news, but free advertising for General Motors. Just more signs that corporations, one way or another, are deeply connected to the media and are being used to manipulated the public. And if you think that being the "car of the year" is generally interesting news to people, I might agree if this was really the story. But if you look carefully, it is qualified as the "North American Car of the Year", which implies it really is not the car of the year since they've excluded all the imports that typically win the real car of the year awards. Maybe CNN is just trying to show their patriotic side?

Goose Gossage and Hall of Fame

From cbssportsline.com this evening:

"It's insane it took nine years on the ballot for Goose Gossage to get elected to Cooperstown, but thankfully voters come to their senses."

Kind of funny to see a sportswriter say that what sportswriters do is "insane" (it is sportswriters that determine who gets in the hall of fame after all). Anyone paying attention knowns that (almost all) sportswriters are definitely not journalists, and are more typically not any smarter or thoughtful than a random person off the street. So when a sports media outlet publishes a headline that effectively admits that sportswriters, as a group, are behaving with no rhyme or reason (or possibly with deliberate capriciousness), that's something I find refreshing.