
Why I left news - danso
http://allysonbird.com/2013/03/19/why-i-left-news/
======
jawns
I left the news business about a year and a half ago. I had been an editor at
a metro daily paper, and I survived several rounds of layoffs because my
programming skills were so valuable, but even those of us whose jobs weren't
cut in one round always wondered whether we would be next, and the unpaid
quarterly furloughs were no fun, either.

I _loved_ journalism, and I continue to love journalism, so it was really
difficult to leave it as a _vocation_. But it was not very difficult to leave
it as a _business_.

Now that I'm doing full-time software development, it's easy to see that it
was the right choice for me and my family. The salary and benefits are
significantly better, as you might expect, and so is the morale and the job
security.

I might have stuck it out longer if I had any confidence that the people who
handle the business end of the journalism world had a decent plan to become
profitable again as print dies out (or at least becomes permanently crippled).
But I never heard or saw anything, internally or externally, to give me that
confidence that there was a workable plan.

(As it turns out, I have been able to continue writing, not only for my
employer but outside of work -- I have a book coming out in the fall and
another in the works. That's helped to satisfy my writing itch, and my full-
time job has helped to satisfy my "pay the bills" itch.)

~~~
bsg75
It seems that news as a business is moving away from journalism, and towards
sensationalism. Being first becoming more important that being accurate.
Getting the most eyes on your ads.

I have a suspicion that what newspaper companies want is not what is taught in
journalism school.

~~~
knowtheory
> _I have a suspicion that what newspaper companies want is not what is taught
> in journalism school._

You are correct, but not in the way that you intend. Journalism schools are
even slower moving than the news industry. There are pockets of the news world
who realize they need data analysis skills and programming talent (at prices
they can afford).

Journalism schools, by and large, have no idea what to do about this, even if
they recognize the need, and few plans on how to bridge this gap.

The Knight Foundation & Mozilla are making an effort to recruit programmers to
the news world through efforts like Source
(<http://source.mozillaopennews.org/en-US/> ) and the Knight-Mozilla OpenNews
Fellowships (<http://www.mozillaopennews.org/fellowships/> ).

(In fact I'm one of the earlier programmers insnared by their machinations,
and i now work on DocumentCloud at the journalism non-profit Investigative
Reporters & Editors)

~~~
bsg75
> here are pockets of the news world who realize they need data analysis
> skills and programming talent (at prices they can afford).

What does the "afford" part mean in this context?

------
jkldotio
The fact is the news has never been what we believe it to be, there is no
clear line that defines a journalist. My startup is focused on reinventing the
definitions we normally take for granted to arrive at something entirely
different.

There are hundreds upon hundreds of think tanks, bloggers, academics and NGOs
who all do deep policy work, lengthy investigations into issues and opinion-
making. The problem is they just aren't all in the one place. You can't simply
try to put them in one place under a for-profit model because sooner or later
an editor is going to look at the accounts and say 'hyperbole pulls in 100x
the clicks compared to the NGO report .pdf'. There is simply no way to avoid
that in the end, even with a slight detachment from the ads and cross
subsidisation inside a corporation like Google. Google had to shut down Reader
for exactly this reason, it wasn't good for ads.

Basically my argument is we need to replace greedy and/or partisan editors
with content aware programs, and redefine what we think of as a journalist to
include people from think tanks, NGOs, academics and bloggers. I've made a
start with a prototype at jkl.io, but I have the same problem as Ms. Bird in
that there is no interest/money in it so I might well be forced to do other
things.

------
DanielBMarkham
What we need is not more journalists -- everybody and his brother is a
journalist. What we need is more editors. And more demand for editors.
Somebody to curate and brutally dissect content for others to consume.
Somebody to tell authors "No. This is not good enough. Rewrite it."

Newspapers and other MSM outlets are one of the last places this is happening.
I don't think we'll miss newspapers when they finally disappear, but we're
sure as heck going to miss editors.

~~~
javert
As someone who has worked as a writer and editor at a newspaper, I think
you're undervaluing journalists (it's a high-skill, analytical job) and making
a false distinction between editors and journalists (it's like "software
architect" vs. "programmer" - same basic skills, more supervisory role). But
that's not what I want to talk about.

My actual point is that for better journalism to happen (what you call better
editing), it needs to be incentivized. I am still hopeful that somebody will
figure out how to build a successful journalism platform, probably based on
micropayments, that incentivizes good journalism.

I'm not sure if PG listed this in his essay from a while back about great
world-changing startup ideas, but I think it would qualify.

~~~
knowtheory
There have been a number of efforts to innovate in the news industry, some
which have met with some modicum of success, but no eventual impact.

YC has even funded a number of startups some of which have folded in
spectacular style.

As for micropayments & kickstarter there is/was <http://spot.us/> which was
purchased by Minnesota Public Radio and has been neglected a bit.

~~~
javert
I checked that site, couldn't figure out its actual model in 30 seconds (or
even where to go to figure it out), and I think that's a big problem. But it
looks like they were going in what I think is a good direction.

------
unreal37
The problem is that there is not enough financial benefit to being first to a
story, or getting a story right, or having the best article. Websites who
report the news but never leave their office desk all day (ie, reposting AP
stories and re-blogging, Mashable and Techcrunch for instance) make as much
money as those that do real "in field" news work. And that brings down the
value of real "in field" news work.

Back 10-15 years ago, a newspaper could break a story, and no other newspaper
would be able to cover it til the next day! There was financial benefit to
breaking news stories. Now, with the Internet and 24 hour news on every
channel, when a newspaper breaks a story, it's posted in 10,000 other places
within 10 minutes.

~~~
Wonderdonkey
The issue isn't what hoops you should jump through before you publish a story.
It's what you as a reporter need to do to serve your reader best — period.

You have to distinguish between reporters who should be out in the field —
political and crime beat reporters, for example — and those whose field
actually is their desk. There's no reason for many of the reporters at
Mashable and TechCrunch to leave their desks. They're writing about hardware
and software. They need to be there to test and use the tools in order to
write about them. How is visiting a grieving mother going to help with that?

There's something else about technology reporting that people should keep in
mind before they criticize: The industry is secretive. Except when you have
access to inside, quasi-legal/ethical/reliable information sources, you as a
reporter have no way of knowing the news until the company or researcher is
ready to reveal it to you. That usually coincides with a press release, but
that doesn't mean the work is merely regurgitating a press release. Every
story means learning the tool; having the ability to learn quickly is not a
negative. It's the result of an inquisitive, focused, interested mind capable
of grasping the arcane and translating that into something meaningful for
people who are counting on you to help them get their work done.

I'm a tech reporter and a subject matter expert in a few specialized areas. I
would put my expertise against anybody in my field, and I'm certainly more
knowledgeable than the PR people who put out corporate releases rife with
technical inaccuracies. I didn't get this way by chatting up CEOs or
interviewing the man on the street. I got this way by setting up my autism
station and plugging away at it day and night, weekday and weekend, holiday or
no holiday, asking questions of engineers when I stumble, then writing about
what I learned in a way that people can understand.

My readers benefit from that. That's what matters.

------
tenpoundhammer
The internet has totally destroyed the economics of news. Just like it has
done to so many other industries. I think what we are actually seeing right
now is an industry with a tremendous oversupply of newspapers, journalists,
and other content.

As a result of the oversupply everyone's profits have drastically declined,
and to make up for that they have moved into more garbage and less journalism.
Because garbage sells really well. Great journalism is important, but people
don't pay as much for it.

It's very disappointing to hear stories like this from people that care deeply
about their profession, but it's how economics works. Supply is too great, so
the amount of money each supplier gets goes down. So some suppliers see that
its not worth it, and stop supplying things. At some point the market reaches
equilibrium and the amount of suppliers becomes stable.

Eventually, the market will shakeout and the profits will rise to a
sustainable level for those who are left. When this process finishes,
hopefully we will be left with some great journalists not slinging garbage at
us.

------
at-fates-hands
Interesting. I had a friend who was a college reporter and broke some huge
stories on our campus (women being raped, frat member having nervous
breakdown, catching network hackers) and was stoked to work for a large daily
when he graduated. This was back in the late 90's btw.

Just as the author pointed out, he loved his job at first, then it became
demanding and he went through several rounds of burnout and then saw how the
news cycle was changing and how politically slanted every story he had to
write was.

He quit after 6 years and now just writes ad copy for a large marketing firm.
He says its a lot less stressful and he also stopped reading the news since he
"knows" how slanted and inaccurate the stores you read now are.

He still has some fascinating stories though. . .

Too bad this industry and good reporting died a long time ago.

~~~
crusso
Mainstream Reporting's downfall isn't the result of any real decrease in the
quality as much as an availability of alternatives.

Journalism has always been dodgy, it's just a lot more obvious these days.

------
stevenameyer
It's sad to look at the state of news lately. The industry as a whole seems to
scrambling for viewers/reader/consumers to stay a float and in doing so I
think they are starting to compromise a lot. Seeing the 24-hour news cycle
churn out sensationalized story after story with more of a focus on mass
appeal and speed over quality and digging to find what people really need to
know makes me really sad.

The news is an important establishment and seeing it reduced to what it is is
very disheartening. The fact that twitter is mentioned so often and seen as a
fairly credible source to me just epitomizes just how far it has slid away
from what it was.

------
danielweber
_Newspapers always have been liberal places where people work hard for little
pay, because they believe in the job._

I think this is a recent phenomenon. A friend who works in journalism said
that the answer to "why do you want to be a journalist?" used to be "because I
want to report the truth." At one point the answer changed to "because I want
to change the world." The dividing point? Watergate.

Also, the attraction of journalism as a place for the kids of rich families
eventually drove out everyone who used the job to support themselves.

~~~
snaky
>The dividing point? Watergate

Exactly. That's why what we got now is agenda instead of facts

~~~
triplesec
There were never facts. From the sophists to modern times news has always been
shaky on Truth, and righty so. The contestation is magic, although we have
lost in recent years even the pretence of some kind of semblance of
impartiality.

------
danso
When I was a reporter, I was asked to move into newspaper's newly formed
"multimedia" department because I was one of the only staff members with a
computer engineering degree, even though my degree's emphasis had nothing to
do with multimedia or web development. It turned out to be a lucky opportunity
for me though, if I hadn't taken it I would today most likely be in the OP's
position: young enough to be a cheap asset for the company and still able to
deal with the grueling schedule, but at the precipice of realizing that my
life couldn't continue at such a thankless pace.

In the multimedia department, I ended up teaching myself enough PHP and SQL to
create online interactives such as crime maps and work on database reporting
projects. I didn't like programming then but I'm fortunate to have found a
decent niche where programming skills can be used to research and report out
stories. But I still miss sitting in even the boring council meetings or
visiting crime scenes late at night, and the discipline from the constant,
unmoving deadlines (the paper can't go out with blank holes where your story
should be). Reporting is a great experience for when you're young and wanting
to understand the world. Unfortunately, news consumers lose out when reporting
becomes little more than a character-building exercise for its practitioners.

~~~
srougas99
Unfortunately too many younger journalists don't think PHP or SQL is important
or is part of journalism. Hard to have a real sense of something without
giving it a chance.

It takes effort to learn new skills and is not what they were (incorrectly)
told they would need to do at journalism school so they see it as "tech" work
not journalism.

But in the end most of them people will be unemployed and complain about the
industry and how it was impossible to find a job. Big data is a big deal in
journalism, too bad they never gave it a chance.

I got to a point where my technical skills were out of date as I was working
in a place focused on the same old same old. I left and co-founded a startup
mediaspotme.com that will do more to support journalism than my work at a TV
producer on a Charlie Rose type show in Toronto. I have already built lot
of"tech" skills, before I was never on HN.

------
bryan11
"Newspapers make 80% of their income from legal notices in this state. That's
the only thing keeping them alive." That's what a local reporter told me
recently when he was discussing his retirement.

He also said most of the reporters have lost their jobs and only a tiny group
remain. That makes sense, as the newspaper is now 20% the size it was ten
years ago. There's maybe one or two 'investigative' articles each week and
rest are AP news, local sports, or articles about local shops and what they
sell.

------
davidroberts
I left the news business in 1983, from a major metropolitan daily. I was
coming in at 1 pm, writing three business stories a day to a 6 pm deadline,
then staying until 9 pm supervising the layout of the business pages.
Honestly, many of the business stories were junk (how could they not be at
little more than an hour apiece?). Typically one would be a rewrite of a wire
story, one would be a rewrite of a corporate press release, and one would
consist of calling the same stock market "experts" after the market closed for
their pontifications on why the market moved the way it did that day: "Well,
the market appears to be heading for a correction as buyers anticipate poor
results in tomorrow's housing starts report..." I'd see almost the same words
from the same guys on the wire and in the other major dailies. I'm sure they
were making it all up on the spot.

I always had a couple side stories I was working on that would take a week or
so, and now and then I'd go out to do a business profile, which tended to be
something of an advertisement for the business in question. I'd interview the
owner or president, look around the place, talk to a few employees. But at
least it was something like journalism. But with the intense deadline pressure
during my regular work day, I mainly did the work for these in the morning on
my own time.

There were some fun times though. There was the night when our hometown team
won the Superbowl, and all the reporters stayed late watching the results come
in. That night I drove through streets packed with celebrating people to get
photos taken by our man on the scene from the AP office across town. Election
nights were great too, with free food in the conference room and the whole
staff feverishly compiling results until the front page closed at midnight.

And there was a sense of power too. All I had to do was say "I'm a reporter
for the XYZ Times," and the company president or the head staffer in the
Congressman's office would be eager to talk to me.

Thirty years ago was supposed to be the glory days of print journalism, but
already papers were closing and reporters losing their jobs. A running joke in
the newsroom underscored our basic anxiety about the future: "What's a
journalist? A reporter looking for work."

I lost my job after my mentor, the managing editor who shepherded me through
the political minefield of the editorial staff, got sick and took a six-month
leave of absence, leaving me at the mercy of the ambitious deputy managing
editor.

One day the business editor, my immediate boss, called me into his office and
told me I was being transferred to a sister publication of tiny circulation in
another town, but that was actually a lie. The truth became apparent when I
was called before the deputy managing editor. He actually ran the newspaper
since the editor-in-chief was a figurehead hired for his name alone. The
managing editor who had mentored me was long gone. "How does it feel to be
fired?" were the first words he said. I gathered my stuff and walked out. I
went back to school for a grad degree and never looked back.

~~~
redschell
_"How does it feel to be fired?"_

Wow. I hope you said something along the lines of "Well, since it means I no
longer have to work with assholes like you, it feels pretty fucking good."

~~~
davidroberts
I was so shocked by the whole thing, I didn't think of anything clever to say
until the next day, and then it was too late. He purged about five people
altogether, all ones that had been supported by the former managing editor or
had crossed him in some way. Some friends of mine said I should file a
grievance, but after that experience I didn't really want to go back.

There had been rumors going around the newsroom that something was going to
happen, and I knew I was not one of his favorites, so the day before it
happened, I asked my boss, the business editor, if I was doing OK. He said I
was doing fine. "I especially like the way you've taken over supervising the
layout," he said. He was really embarrassed when he called me in the next day,
and I think that's why he came up the the story that I was being transferred.
I think it was wishful thinking on his part, or he had pushed for a transfer
when they told him, and they said "maybe."

------
shanecleveland
I studied print journalism and worked in the field for three years before
stumbling into something different in 2006. Looking back, it was the perfect
time to move on. But I also bought a house at that time, so it was clearly not
due my keen sense of timing. I highly value my education and experience.
Writing/reporting will never go away. HN is basically an all-text site. That
content has to originate from somewhere. I have respect and admiration for
those that write often and write well, particularly journalists. I wish that
sentiment was more widespread. As is likely the case with many professions, I
believe too many undervalue and minimize the skill and work involved in
writing and reporting. A low barrier to access (blogs/Web sites) shouldn't
correlate to a lower standard.

------
srougas99
Best lines: "vanity of a byline" "I no longer can introduce myself as a
reporter and watch people’s eyes light up"

I was a TV producer and can relate. Part of the attraction was to be where the
action is, but increasingly main stream media is not that place. A byline does
not necessarily equal impact.

I quit and co-founded a startup that will do more for journalism than my work
in TV, but in a less public way that people can't relate to. Media Spot Me is
for journalists to discover people to interview. Something that was a central
pain-point of mine.

I still appreciate the possibility of the media but like you said it is not as
sexy inside as it sounds when talking about it to others.

------
harryf
Reminds me of reading Flat Earth News <http://www.flatearthnews.net/> \- the
view that journalism is seen as a cost center and has been squeezed to the max

------
hipsters_unite
I realised this about a year ago - I was working a day job, writing at night
and trying to find a job in that industry... one day I started coding instead.
I still write, but it's just another part of my income.

------
ghshephard
I love her article - but I don't understand how anyone can ever write a 1500
word story about a decline of the newspaper industry, and the business side of
it, without mentioning "craigslist" as least once.

Craigslist single handedly wiped out the American newspaper's classified
section, and with that revenue gone, pretty much shattered the business model
of the vast majority of the dailies.

------
trustfundbaby
It just feels like we're not doing this (news) right if smart journalists
can't be compensated well for their work. I think someone is going to come
along and figure out a way of doing news that is spectacularly better than
what we're doing ... kinda the way nobody got mobile correct till Steve Jobs
came along.

... but then again I'm kind of a romantic when it comes to the news.

------
LabThug
If this girl wasn't awesome enough, she's also a part of the local roller
derby team! <http://www.lowcountryhighrollers.com/skaters/?show=7>

~~~
danso
One of my last newspaper reporting features was about the local roller derby
team. When I saw "jammer" in her bio, it made me smile...the mindset for derby
jammers is almost by definition "hardscrabble"

------
graycat
She writes with passion, pathos, and poignancy. It's easy to feel her pains.
Lots of emotionalism.

But she misses two much larger 'stories': First, what's happened to the 'news'
business is a short term disaster on top of a long term tragedy. Second,
what's happened to the news business is one more case of what's happened to
big parts of the US economy.

It appears that society has one need from the news business, and that business
has one need from society: Society needs from the news business solid, useful,
important information on government, foreign affairs, the economy, etc., and
the news business needs from society eyeballs to get ad revenue. At this
point, neither society nor the news business is getting what they need.

More generally, my view has long been that what society needs from the news
business, "information on government, ..." is so important and has been so
poorly provided that the news business is, may I have the envelope, please
(drum roll), the most serious problem facing our country and our civilization.
In simple terms, the norms of the news business just have not been to provide
the information our society needs. There is a nice, not really comprehensive
but still nice, view of what the news business has been doing in the OP --
next to nothing to do with providing the information society needs.

Instead of the information, for at least 100 years or so the main product of
the news business has been just light entertainment. The 'story' telling
techniques have been borrowed from formula fiction going back to the ancient
Greeks -- a protagonist to identify with who has a problem, threats, evil
(especially as in the morality plays), black/white hats, etc. Drama? Yes.
Solid information? No.

Thus my view is that this lack of information caused, say, for just a short
list of a few little things, The Great Depression, WWII, the Cold War, the
wars in Viet Nam, The Great Recession, the devastation of the US 'rust belt',
etc. That is, my solid belief is that with some solid information instead of
just formula fiction techniques to tell dramatic stories for light
entertainment, we could have avoided all those disasters.

For some evidence about my claims about the lack of solid information in the
news content, the level of content featured on HN and in the comments is large
steps above the standards of any well known news outlet -- magazine,
newspaper, TV, or Internet.

Information quality? The news business has a tough time reporting percentages
meaningfully: E.g., "up 5%". Okay a percentage change is a measurement a at
time s and a measurement b at time t and then

    
    
         100 * ( b - a ) / a
    

and the "up 5%" omits the times and is unclear if the change is an annual
rate, or not. So, the "up 5%" is just drama for entertainment and not
information. Next the news media regards graphs of numerical data as just
opportunities for graphic arts. So, they fail to indicate units on the axes,
etc.; the graphs they do would do poorly in freshman physics or engineering
labs.

It goes on. The output of the news business is rarely significantly useful.
Did I mention that their goal was just light entertainment?

~~~
triplesec
Yes, society needs information on government, to keep them accountable. Yet
you miss the bigger picture too: it's not just government. We need information
on oligarchic networks, corporations, executives like the police, plutocrats
who buy influence and corrupt: ie anyone who will pillage you and your
community's wellbeing for their selfish ends with no justification.

Sousveillance of the powerful by all of us is necessary. And we, the nerds and
geeks with the information machine skills are the ones to do it. If you're not
thinking about this, you will suffer in the end. Look at what happened to
Aaron.

~~~
graycat
"Yet you miss the bigger picture too"

No, not really! E.g., I wrote:

"Society needs from the news business solid, useful, important information on
government, foreign affairs, the economy, etc."

So, that ended with "etc."

What happened to Aaron and why are right in there.

And don't read, object, and respond too fast to miss my

"Thus my view is that this lack of information caused, say, for just a short
list of a few little things, The Great Depression, WWII, the Cold War, the
wars in Viet Nam, The Great Recession, the devastation of the US 'rust belt',
etc."

I'm not joking: For The Great Depression, that we were blowing a financial
bubble based on thin margin from banks, a bubble that likely would burst
(bubble bursting went back at least to the Dutch tulips) and wipe out the
banking system should have been clear somewhere some months or years before
October, 1929. With that information, we should have taken action to deflate
the bubble slowly ("soft landing") and keep the banks from going bust. Next,
the banks use 'fractional reserve banking' with a 'multiplier effect' that
essentially creates money. So the bubble blowing creates too much money and
causes inflation. Then when the bubble bursts, we get deflation. With a credit
economy, tough to get out of deflation. We ruined lots of lives, killed lots
of people in the US, during the deflation. We didn't get out of the deflation
until we were willing to 'print' money again, i.e., when people started
shooting at us 12 years later. With just decent information, not much more
than the above, made authoritative and disseminated, we should have avoided
most of the bubble bursting, all of The Great Depression, and likely WWII.

Now, move the clock forward to the housing bubble blowing and The Great
Recession, same song, different verse. From 1929 to 2008, we didn't learn
much. E.g., the 'news' had lots of 'stories' about house prices but next to
nothing on the leverage at the banks and on Wall Street. So, when the bubble
burst, we were well on the way to a second Great Depression. We were better at
handling the problem than in the first Great Depression, but we still have
fumbled for four years.

In the past four years the 'news' has just done their usual of light
entertainment, emotionalism over rationalism, passion, pathos, and poignancy,
people to 'identify' with in 'stories' about individual cases, with next to
nothing, zip, zilch, zero, on the real causes and the real ways out. So, we
have suffered massive unemployment, slow economic growth, and, no doubt, much
higher rates of, let's look at the usual list, street crime, domestic
violence, divorce, abortion, substance abuse, homelessness, clinical
depression, suicide, little things like those. And, there's the devastation of
the US 'rust belt' -- no excuse for that. We really can build cars in the US
-- Honda, Toyota, BMW, etc. do it. Detroit could have, too.

Then coming at us like a runaway freight train is the high praise for 'free
and open world trade'. Hmm. Guys, we don't have a 'world government' and,
really, don't want one. Then 'free and open world trade' without a
corresponding government promises significant economic instability, suffering,
conflict, and maybe WWIII.

Then there is the reason given for 'free and open world trade', that in some
work some other country is 'more productive' than the US so that we should
'trade' the results of where they are productive with where we are productive.
I.e., all the textile workers in the US should get jobs in software. Instead
we had to pay for the imported textiles and the 'safety net' for the US
textile workers; many workers and their families were hurt as in the usual
list above; the quality of the textile products went down; we wiped out some
major US businesses; etc.

So, why'd we do that? Well, some importers make some money. But apparently the
main issue was the US Foggy Bottom community that wanted to use access to the
US markets as a 'carrot' to influence the foreign policies of some other
countries. US voters were not informed about this 'swap'. Net, some foreign
economies are going up, and our economy is going down.

Why, that is, what about the 'productivity' issue? That was always mostly a
fraud. Sure, a big example is tin: We need some tin, and Indonesia has some.
So, generally, in natural resources, trade is important. But in textiles? The
textile workers over there have 10 fingers on each hand and can sew seams and
buttons twice as fast? No. And they have less good infrastructure. The
difference, instead, is foreign exchange rates.

Beyond the money, there is an issue of actual control of our country: Parts of
the Mideast can pump oil for ballpark $1 a barrel and sell it for $100 a
barrel. So, they get to dream of 'golden' cities and hire people to build
them. Not so good but maybe okay so far -- we can set up Victoria's Secret
stores there. But next they get to buy essentially all our country and, thus,
control us. Bad.

And for what? Oil. But there's no need: Mostly it's about gasoline. But can
make gasoline, and also get off a byproduct of some oxygen, from just coal,
water, and some energy. For the energy, use whatever, wind, solar, if they are
efficient, or coal or nuclear fission. I'd bet on the last as the most
economic solution. South Africa does it. Hitler did it. It's doable. At one
time there was an article in 'Scientific American' with an analysis that could
make gasoline from Utah coal and put into a pipeline for 65 cents a gallon.
Net, the US really should be largely or entirely 'energy independent' with
relatively cheap energy. That we can do that, and how to do it, needs to get
out so that we can come to a consensus and then do it. The 'news' didn't get
that information out.

You mentioned the police. Okay. It's always dangerous to have a national
police force, and in the US we tried to avoid doing that. Then the FBI was an
exception. Now the Secret Service, another police force, does much more than
look at counterfeiting and protect the president. Then we have the DEA busting
down doors. And now we have the DHS with at least the Border Police. Net,
we've got a lot of national police forces.

When a local police force messes up, the local people can get concerned and
take action. So, local police forces are accountable. But if the DHS Border
Police messes up, is that really going to swing a national election to clean
up the DHS? Nope. So the DHS police force is not accountable. Bummer.
Dangerous.

For more, long we let the states handle crime and sometimes didn't even pass
federal laws against some major criminal acts. But now just ignoring the terms
of service at a Web site can get the US DoJ all up on their hind legs, send in
the FBI, and start talking felonies and years in jail. This national police
force stuff is dangerous.

Finally, here's a pattern: People want 'security', see a problem or a threat
and, then, can be talked into having the US Federal Government take action to
solve the problem/threat from DC (now the third richest area in the country
behind Silicon Valley and hedge fund CT). So, we keep getting a larger and
larger Federal Government, and that's a threat to efficiency, freedom, and our
whole country.

Net, as citizens, we need better information, and we need a 'news' industry
that will provide it, maybe in addition to the traffic violations of L. Lohan,
so that we can come to consensus based on good information and then authorize
action.

