Starbucks and the Internet's Bogeyman

So, Starbucks. I know, I know, but this isn't one of those posts, okay? I want to actually attempt to explain at least some of this bullshit.

As everyone in the United States has seen on repeat for the past news cycle, Starbucks replaced their red cups with snowflakes and doves on them with red cups.

The first I saw of the news was the sudden arrival of 80 billion posts on my friends' list complaining about people complaining about this change.

I saw not one actual complaint about the change.

My guess is, hardly any of my friends posting backlash against the backlash actually saw any original backlash either.

So, our knowledge of this "Starbucks controversy" comes in the form of replies to a complaint that, so far as I can tell, never really took off online. Sure, a few people were raising their hands to clouds and shouting Merry Christmas in their living rooms like every year, but, you know, most years we just tell grandpa to stop yelling at the TV and go back to our lives.

This year, for some reason, we decided to make up a bad guy and skewer him. And this news cycle, it happened to be right-wing Christians attacking Starbucks (whether or not they actually did). Because it is plausible enough that somewhere, someone who believes in the Savior was ticked off about the removal of a few white pictures on a red cup. Or, like, wouldn't it be funny and eye-roll inducing if there were someone mad about something like that? It WOULD. Okay, let's go with that. And then as people continue to open their computers, this happens:

Because it's an easy joke. It's an easy topic. It's an easy debate. It's easy. People like easy. And people love to tell other people that there are more important things going on than what they are worried about. Makes the first lot seem very important and worldly while they also get to contribute to the very topic they deem so unimportant.

And in this--very rare--case, Sbux cups actually ARE unimportant. (Usually, people telling other people their worries are meaningless because people are starving, or houses are burning and etc., are just falling back on a logical fallacy to inflate their own sense of importance). But not this time.

So, Starbucks cups.

Meanwhile, there is Mizzou, there are protests in the Philippines, Russia has a nuclear torpedo, we're close to finding life outside our solar system, Israelis are killing Palestinians in hospitals, Yale students are being Yale students, the ozone hole is as big as it was at record bigness, and the like.

All below the fold to Starbucks and its new cup.

Why?

Let me tell you.

In communications academia we have this theory called agenda setting. It basically states that the media set the agenda for the public and its opinion. To break that down: the media tell the people what is important to them and how they should think about the issue. And the public then responds. This is a self-propelling phenomenon, as whether or not the public agrees with the salience of the issue the media tell it is important, they still contribute to that salience by responding. Ergo, what the media decide to promote is the issue that goes to the front lines. And all the people railing against that power simply make that power stronger.

So, why would media focus on a Starbucks marketing decision, amid all the actual important news out there? As mentioned before, it is easy.

You see, even though media set the agenda for the public, media are beholden to what the public will actually talk about and they pay people like me big money to tell them what those issues are going to be. In the online age particularly, picking a topic that the public will respond to and argue over quickly and virally is of utmost importance to continue the relevance of any given publications, and guys, the media knows you a little bit. It's been serving you for a while now.

The media knows that liberals want to laugh about how stupid conservative people are, and that conservative people want to be like, bro, I don't even care about a cup, wtf, and that religious people want to chime in about a very important piece of their lives no matter where they fall in the argument.

The argument, remember, that isn't even happening because who of any importance actually said, OMG STARBUCKS HATES CHRISTIANS.

Not one person. At least in the early days.

In fact, the media TOLD Donald Trump (and a few other "important / newsworthy" people, that this was an issue, and basically invited them to be that guy. Because you can't fight a ghost forever.

So when Trump did his Trumply duty and spoke on it, we all wiped our brows in relief. It worked. The plan worked. We got our bad guy.

And when Dunkin' Donuts saw a chance to get its name in the news because holy crap, what a TON of advertising for Sbux right now, and that is totally unfair to the other coffee chains, it, too, made its own followup. Then Ellen and other people with credibility stepped in.

And now we've got a story with legs. And we get to sit back and say, "See, public? We told you this was a big deal and you heard it here first. We told you this was a big story. We broke this story. You know, the story we completely fabricated."

Another win for publications filling pages looking for clicks.

And the public began to play along. After a million posts starting with those memes above, then going into the actual news stories linked just after those, people started to voice their opinions on the issue and we got ourselves a nice (if tiny), eff-the-pc-police camp. So, thanks, internet commenters. You've done your job. In my public search, I found two. TWO.

"So I went to Starbucks to test the no Merry Christmas bull that Donald Trump has been talking about, and sure enough, they are not allowed to say it or write it on your cup! So not only do they support killing babies by employee matching planned parenthood, but they really have banned the use of Christmas this season! Thinking it's about time for a total boycott!"

"Christmas is the best holiday of the year. It has nothing to do with religion - it's about family time, snuggling, warm cider, christmas trees, gift-giving, reindeer and santa claus ...
The disappointment with Starbucks is about the PC-neutralization of American culture, and not about religion.
Once again Trump has the right idea. Dump Starbucks. Peet's has better coffee anyways, and they have holiday cheer!"

Okay great.


But we still haven't answered why the media choose to inflate the importance of stories like this. And I can't speak for them, I can only speak for me, but I can tell you, as a member of the media, it is hard to report on news. News is sad. And bad. And angry. And unfair. And people are fucking dying out there every day. And it's our job to tell you about it. And you don't want to hear about it, and we don't want to write about it, not because we don't care, but because we care so much, and we are helpless. We are the mouthpiece of the atrocities of the world, and we soon learn that just telling people about these atrocities does not end those atrocities. Only action and behavioral change on a systemic level does. And news articles are like bb guns in the fight to create that change. We have entire models on this, again, in academia. Changing behavior in just ONE individual takes the perfect recipe of facts, timing and interest on the part of that person that must be applied for months if not years. Changing the behavior in a society? That takes decades, and millions of voices, and the change is slow and painful and we're tired.

So, the public wants a break to complain about a cup?

Sometimes we just give up and agree. Yes, let's do that instead. For today. Tomorrow, back on the social justice boat.

Running through mud

It's taken me years to decide I'm a work-at-home mom rather than a stay-at-home-mom, and for me the distinction came with the money (although, honestly, I'm not making a great deal of income right now, so even though it feels full time, it's probably part time, but still...FEELINGS.)

It's tough because nothing ever seems to get done, although I know logically enough must be getting done because we can still walk in my house, my kids still love me, and I still get new projects each week. Still, it feels like I'm running in mud.

Today went like this:

At 6:30 a.m., I got up. I woke up the kids. Started getting them dressed and went out with the dog. One of the twins wasn't feeling well, and decided to stay home but not, of course, without a lot of hand wringing and drama over her decision. We weren't sure if she was actually sick at first, but since she never has faked this stuff before, we went with it, even though she had no fever or outward signs of ill.

I walked the other one to school at 7:30 a.m. and arrived back home just before 8, where I went in to talk to the sick twin and lo and behold, she had to upchuck...something blue? Welp, good decision on the staying home, I guess.

Anyway, after that, I set her up on the couch for just a hot second, after still making her get dressed because I had physical therapy at 9:30 a.m. and guess who had to come with me? But first I took out the trash and recycling and picked up all the dog excrement from the week (he goes in one spot in our yard, so it's, like, fine. Whatever). Then I came in and washed up, made my husband half his breakfast and his lunch, and girly and I got going.

I was at PT for an hour for this ridiculous neck/back injury that I reinjured somehow, I don't even know, but is for real a pain in the ass, and I hate every second of this new literal-pain-in-the-neck life. The PT didn't help, and Lilly was bored, but we got it done.

Back at home at 10:30, I made her some tea she didn't drink and toast she didn't eat. She did have a banana though, so winning. Then I set her up in front of the TV and she watched two Mickey Mouse Playhouses while I edited a piece on the minimum wage hike in LA for Time Ideas.

She wanted to play on her tablet after that, and the Brave game that we left at Nana's in Connecticut. Of course. We compromised and she played a Monsters Inc. game she'd forgotten about while I moved on to editing a piece on opioids in Montana. I ran into a bit of trouble with it, and it took me the rest of the time Dulce was in school to straighten out most of its kinks. This always happens. An edit that should take an hour takes three. My life. I gave Lilly half a turkey sandwich she didn't eat, and some crackers she didn't eat. She eventually had three slices of apple and some juice.

We picked up Dulce, and the girls had a snack which they mostly didn't eat. Then they played on their tablet together, sharing it, and I lay down for 15 minutes because my stupid neck. Got up and continued working on the opioid piece until about 3:30 p.m. when I just said eff it. Now I'm waiting on some return emails.

I sent emails out on three other stories and am waiting on replies. I contracted two new stories (I think. Maybe just one?) and another client followed up on a newsletter I'm supposed to be writing for them, but they didn't really follow up, only kind of. Got an email from my agent.

Great news! They think my new proposal is way, way, like, much stronger, and they're finally ready to send it back to the editor who was interested. Only that editor no longer works at the publisher. Womp womp womp. Of course.

Wrote a fantastic essay on pantsuits for Dame Magazine then, and pegged it to Hil's new pantsuit tee-shirt. That was a mistake, though, because they're full up on content this week, so I'll have to find a new peg in a few weeks and get back to it then.

Girls had moved on to watching TV at that point, and watched some show I hate called "I didn't do it" on Disney Channel for like at least an hour before I had to shut their whiny faces off.

Then we did chores together, the girls and I. Lilly did dishes, Dulce cleaned off the table and I cleaned the kitchen and living room spaces. It is our routine. After that I made them quesadillas for dinner with rice and broccoli as sides, and they ate half or most of it, depending on which twin we're talking about. Dulce had a cookie for dessert but Lil still wasn't feeling that great in her tummy so she skipped it.

My husband came home from work right after we finished going over their homework for the week, and they finished their dinners while I started making ours. Then I made them get ready for bed while they tried to play with dolls and walkie talkies, and glow sticks. My husband and I ate while they played a bit and then I managed to get them into bed. I went to do the dishes and I poured dog food in the soap container because I am utterly on top of things.

All day there were lots of hugs, lots of me breaking up silly fights and stopping silly tantrums, and lots of me getting them juice, gum, a snack, a tissue, some water, some tea, something. Anything. Get them something.

It's G day tomorrow, so we picked out green clothing and got two card games they could bring to school (I hope they don't lose Uno. I actually like that one). Hugs and kisses and I love yous to bed.

I really like this life, I just wish I could get more things done during each day. I was supposed to clean the kitchen and the bedroom and the bathroom today. I was supposed write two more articles than I did. I was supposed to play with my kids more. I was supposed to clean the playroom with them. I was supposed to finish research for my master's thesis.

I ran out of time. I always run out of time. Running through mud. At least I wrote in the blog today?

Journalism Isn't Dead...It's a Zombie.

My mom just sent me an email that listed journalism as one of the worst three jobs. Ever. Like, there's no quantifier in there. Just one of the worst three jobs. This is by Daily Briefing, who uses Bureau of Labor statistics and runs them through a snazzy algorithm, weighing stuff like satisfaction, health risk, stress levels, etc.

You know what the other two worst jobs are, guys?

Enlisted military and lumberjacks.

"One of these things is not like the other...one of these things just doesn't belong..."

But, seriously, let's take a look at those two. I mean, it's pretty obvious that one might be dissatisfied in these jobs because they're never home with their loved ones, or because it's really loud and strenuous all the time, and most likely because you make one mistake and you've lost a limb. Like a literal piece of your body. There are legitimate reasons these jobs are considered the worst.

How is journalism even remotely comparable to jobs where if you sneeze you could lose an arm?

First off, I'm absolutely sure the algorithm they used vastly over-accounted for the danger in a journalist's job. Are there reporters who have to put their lives on the line daily to get a story out? Yes. And in those cases, the danger is (or at least can be) as great as a combatant or a lumberjack.

But let's be real. That is not like 99 percent of journalists. For every one person risking their hide for a story, there are 200 more back at home, typing it up, making it pretty, calling "officials" etc. And it's actually that 99 percent that puts journalism on this list.

In no other line of work is the expectation of what you will be doing so very far from what you will actually be doing.

Think about the people who "become journalists." They're young, creative, idealistic, adventurous kids who get into this racket to be young, creative, idealistic and adventurous. And they're sold a false bag of goods.

People go into journalism to be this:

Bernstein and Woodward as dramatized by Hoffman and Redford.

And this:

Fictional hero of journalists everywhere.

I mean, we go in to find the good stuff on the bad guys, give no fucks, write it up with no shit from management because it's an important story and come and go as we please, fighting the good fight. We want to meet witnesses in bars, and buy coffee for corrupt police officers. We want to hide in the back of a truck bed, scribbling notes as a stolen bunch of paintings whizzes out of state. We want to find the exciting shit and grab on for the ride, stopping only when it's freaking over to type our fingers to the bone while swigging freaking beer and talking to our best friends about the coolest shit ever that just freaking happened, oh my God. And we want to tell the truth and change the world. We want to expose the faults and get them fixed. And we want to do it our way, on our time, with no used-up authority figure telling us we have to "tone it down" or we can't use a fantastic quote because "the police/government/our own corporation won't like it."

Nah, dude. We journalists. We gettin' this shit done.

Sure, your Jskool prof tells you in his steely, tired voice that you'll be eating bologna sandwiches for the rest of your life, and your ear will be attached to the phone, and you'll never, EVER, get paid any money. But do you listen?

NO!

You are a journalist. No negative nelly is going to stop you in your unquenchable thirst for justice and truth! Plus, you are a kid. You're convinced that old prof just 'did it wrong.' You'll do it right.

Womp womp womp.

So, unsurprisinglly, after your 3000th stupid town meeting and between your 500th and your 800th politely worded obituary, it's no wonder you lose your way. Journalists have to pay dues, apparently. (Which is dumb, btw). And those dues pretty much never end these days. There is no exciting story to be covered and if there ever were one, the corporations in control of the newsrooms would sap the life out of it as quickly as they sapped the life out of your immediate supervisor.

I mean, let's not forget about that guy, right? So, not only do you drag your ass to work every day to phone the town council president to talk about petunia growth in your town square while trying not to stab out your own eyeballs with the pencil you keep for taking very quick, important notes (that you've never even had to use one time), you also have to do that for eight hours straight with that guy staring right at you, waves of animosity just rolling off him.

Don't get me wrong. There are a million awesome people in journalism. They're tired, and broken, and disappointed, and sad (for the most part), but awesome. Then there are these guys. These guys who are just sure that your mere existence is a threat to them. You're going to take their scoop (on what, dude? The pony parade coming to town? Because that's all your corporate head lets you report anyway), or their validation (he really needed that 'you should have been nominated for a webby' comment, okay?), or worst of all, they think you'll take their job.

That's a legit concern, by the way, and it rounds out our ways in which journalism is the worst of the worst of jobs. There is no job security at all. Like AT ALL. Take news directors in broadcast, for example. On average, they last 18 months. These are the top dogs, people. Any further up the line and you're corporate. ON AVERAGE, they last 18 months. Fuck me typing if a producer or reporter is going to last that long unless they become the perfect yesman.

Journalist. Pusher of truth. The perfect yesman.

"One of these things is not like the other...one of these things just doesn't belong..."

So, yeah, what this messed-up recipe yields is a whole lot of burned out, bitter, poor, automatons, saying yes to every stupid-assed decision and every ethically questionable agenda that comes their way for fear of losing the job they do for PENNIES, because they're supposedly in it for the love of it.

We say in mass comm grad school that journalism is dead, a lot. We're talking, of course, about the outmoded newspaper model. But it's so much more than that. And we're not even going to go into the blatant sexism and bullshit that goes on. Or how about how everyone not only hates us, but also thinks they can do our job. Like, everyone thinks they can just write. It is infuriating, no? That's another couple of posts.

The internet didn't kill journalism. It's been dead for a long time. Journalism is a zombie.

But!

There is hope.

One of you suckers out there in internet-land is going to come up with a new model that turns everything completely on its head because in internet-land, we are no longer beholden to hours, and yeses, and phone calls to petty officials and bosses, and bullshit. Someone out there is going to break this shit. And they're going to put up something else. And I will be on that bandwagon.

Because I'm in journalism to be Fletch, dammit.

And no amount of firing me, telling me I'm a piece of shit, or making me rewrite a 20-second voice over about a car crash with no injuries that happened three days ago is going to stop me. And I know I'm not alone.

So, let's do this, journalists. Let's JOURNALISM.

In Defense of the Big, Bad Media

I want to take a tiny, inconsequential sliver of the gruesome tragedy in Connecticut and apply it to the broader hatred and ranting I'm seeing pop up everywhere...against the media. And it's not like this is new. Everyone hates the media, it's cool. I hate it, too, promise. For some reason, though, I'm seeing a lot of backlash against the workers of news themselves. And, honestly, they don't want to be there. But what are they going to do? Quit? They need to eat, too, and 20 years ago, they thought journalism would be a cool thing to do, yo. Or they're kids and they just decided it would be cool, like, last year. But either way, they don't want to be there.

Now, I have been fighting for fewer words and less coverage since the event itself, but we need to get to the root of the coverage problem.

I'm just going to list some things out here:

1) The media is not profiting off this tragedy.

To help you understand this, I first want to break down the hierarchy of news money makers. The local affiliates get nothing. I mean, seriously, people, the local newsrooms don't even make enough money to hire a decent staff. I'm sure you don't keep up on journalism postings, but given my background, I do. I just saw a job at a CT local, considered a medium to large market, for a reporter who can shoot and edit her own packages, produce and run cut-ins, and update the website.

That's five jobs. That's FIVE jobs. And this particular station had just laid off ten people. They're hiring two people to replace those ten.

And the people on the street? The glamorous reporters, the cool producers in the booth, the chic photogs behind the camera? They make nothing. They're not pulling in hundreds of thousands of dollars (well, some are, but even in national news, that's a lot more rare than you would think.) These people are just doing their jobs, for probably $10 an hour, maybe $20, and you know what? If they don't do their jobs? If someone else does their job better than them (like, say, Facebook and Twitter or the other stations?) then their station lays ten more people off.

It's not about making money. It's about feeding families. Just like when you go to your job.

2) The media is not its own thing.

Let's move on from the little guys, though. If anyone is profiting off this,  it's corporations. GE, Meredith, and the like. You think that's a joke on 30 Rock? It's not. The next time you want to ram into some news organization, look one rung up. They're all run by huge companies now, many of which have nothing to do with news.

We're blaming the wrong guys. I mean, it's really easy to blame the 24-hour network idiots you actually see camping out in Newtown, attending private child funerals. Who doesn't hate those guys? But this is not the investigative piece of the story. These reporters are not there of their own volition. Their corporate bosses are telling their bosses are telling their bosses are telling them to do something that makes their skin crawl, that makes everyone's skin crawl.

Media really isn't it's own thing. And this is the problem we have all over the country that we're keenly aware of in other businesses, but somehow we forget when it comes to media...that they're also just another penny in the pocket of multi-million-dollar corporations.

Now, in order for these corporations to get paid, they will have to keep their ratings high all the way until February. Because advertisers look at TV in February, in May and in November. These are called sweeps. What they could possibly do is go to the advertisers in question and show them the numbers from this month, but, honestly, it's not going to matter all that much.

I don't know, I could be wrong about all this. I'm only talking from the view point of someone who once produced news shows.

3) The media has a job to do.

So, why do they do it? Why are they there?

Well, because it's a job, really. It's their job.

For some in news, it's a noble drive. They truly believe that through coverage of such events they can evoke public outcry, public thought, political change. Perhaps the angle they take on a story will prompt letters to congresspeople, will prompt votes for or against gun control, accessibility to mental health care, or any other of the myriad of political agendas people have glommed onto. Because the public is no better than the news. The public is just as blowhard-y, just as loud, just as full of hot air in the face of tragedy. All that meme sharing, all those viral blog posts. The public is hungry for this story. And maybe with enough information, they can actually create change for the better.

There are, of course, those out for the glory. For the show reel. For the 'career-maker.' And even those not in it for that can get carried away, can forget, can distance themselves, purposefully or not, from the story. Because to deal in that environment takes a lot of nerve, in the best and worst sense of the word. So, yes, the shots of the millions of cameras, the bragging about the media descending upon Newtown--gross. I agree.

It's a sickly competition, isn't it? But what can one do?

We certainly can't change it by crying outrage and bringing more attention to the business. That, you see, is what makes the business. Attention from the public continues the story. If you don't want to know the gory details, stop watching them.

And there is some good to be done here. Check out the Hartford Courant's coverage. Now, I have no love lost on the Hartford Courant. They laid my husband off, plunging us into  two years of grief and poverty. So, I'm not like, their secret champion or anything. But they are being heralded for their "tasteful and complete" coverage of the story.

That's a bit more how you enact change. Make a big deal out of the corporations doing it right. Heap accolades upon them and other news outlets (meaning the organizations behind them) will want to do the same.

But going back to the Courant, they are searching not for "angles" but for the stories that will affect change across the nation. Uncovering the background of the gun-loving townspeople, and looking at whether or not this outlook is dangerous, or whether it's just a coincidence. There are deep questions here that need to be answered. We could let the NRA do it, the politicians do it, the public Facebook meme-ers do it, or the journalists do it. Actually, we can't let any of them do it. Because all of them are going to do it anyway.

4) There is no thrill to this story.

It's okay, you can disagree on this one. But I highly doubt you'll be able to find one newsperson, in even the darkest depths of the most private newsroom reveling in this. Stories that are thrilling are investigative pieces, Watergate would be a good example. A piece where you get to play detective, where you get to right a wrong, bring an evil to light. This story is not one of those. It's just a horrible, horrible thing that happened.

Honestly, the Onion posted the best take on this, in my opinion.

5) The media is all the same (and this includes armchair Facebook journalism)

And I hate this.

Actually, I love it in its way. Genius, really. The Denver Post reports about how awful the news is by hanging out at local Newtown restaurants and eavesdropping on conversations. By harassing a woman for an interview who had already told television crews no several times. It's a whole other angle. And one that makes the Denver Post look so sanctimonious, all by doing exactly what every other news organization is doing.

Great job, guys.

And horrible job.

What we should have done, in my opinion, is had a media blackout out of respect for this community and this tragedy. I hoped when I turned on the news that day at ten p.m., I would see nothing. A time to mourn, to process, to grieve.

But that is not the news. And by watching it when it shows stories we're tired of or think have been completely overdone, we are pushing the very stories we say we don't want to see to the front page again and again.

And by posting on Facebook about how everyone just needs to leave the community alone, we are not leaving it alone. We are continuing the conversation. And by crying out against the politicization of the issues at hand, we are furthering those agendas.

If we want quiet on this issue, we have to be quiet.