To answer the very important question of the title, you need a little background, which is illustrated by a question from reader Steve in Texas:
Some time ago, I “Liked” the This is True Facebook page, but almost never see any posts. I figured you weren’t active until I went back to the page, and saw a ton of stuff I thought was great! How come I’m not seeing it regularly? I see most posts from my friends.
Last week, my BS-o-Meter failed, and a fake story made it into This is True.
There were a couple of stories I found earlier in the month, but decided to hold until the Memorial Day issue. And they get to be in the blog, since one of them has illustrations you need to see for the complete effect.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever done a movie review in True before, and I won’t be doing them that often, but I went to see Avatar this weekend, and I was very impressed.
When I started True back in 1994, there weren’t too many people online — especially compared to now. Once I quit my Day Job to pursue online publishing full time, I was constantly looking for peers — people to talk with that would understand what it was I was doing.
There were several cranky responses to a story in last week’s issue. Let’s start with the story, from the edition dated 5 July 2009:
There will probably be two responses to the first story in this week’s issue: 1) I was too hard on the public library/librarian, and 2) I wasn’t hard enough on her. To be sure, my tagline was judging her based on the standards of the American Library Association.
Episode #41: “Not Weird Enough to Be True”, from True’s 15 March 2009 issue.
Chris in Washington asks:
Randy: you’ve mentioned Twitter a couple of times, and I see you have a link on TRUE’s home page to your Twitter page. I’ve looked at Twitter a couple of times, and I just don’t get it. Do people really care that their friends (or favorite celebrities) are “Waking up to face the day.” or “Eating a bologna sandwich for lunch.”? Why?
A quick note about This is True’s story sources. When I started True, I wanted my stories to be from “mainstream, legitimate newspapers” — with an early addition being the weekly news magazines (like Time and Newsweek). I’ve always stayed away from broadcast sources, since I always want a printed version of a story to rely on.
Episode #6: “If At First You Don’t Succeed”, from True’s 13 July 2008 issue.
Sometimes newspaper editors do their work mechanically, not paying any attention whatever to what they’re printing — even on the front page. And I have the photos to prove it. From True’s 23 December 2007 issue:
There’s an interesting update on the story and discussion last week about the NFL’s fight against churches — the NFL warned churches not to show the Super Bowl game to parishioners due to copyright restrictions.
This week’s lead story brought a fair amount of mail from the Premium subscribers, many of whom were surprised by my take on the story. Here it is:
I had reserved this space tonight for a major rant. What makes one of my rants “major”? I was actually going to call for a boycott and a letter-writing campaign — I don’t recall ever doing that before. I wanted to show how collective outrage can make a difference. But you know what happened? Collective outrage grew on its own, quickly rising to a spontaneous chorus of “NO!” And the perpetrator listened.
CNN host Kyra Phillips — took a bathroom break while President Bush was speaking from the site of Hurricane Katrina’s one-year anniversary remembrance. The story, from True‘s 10 September 2006 issue:
First, it’s just a fun story. But it was extra fun for me since I know one of the principals involved: Mark Mason, an on-air personality at KEX radio in Portland, Ore. Anytime I’m in Portland, Mark has me on his show, and it’s a blast to be there. Anyway, the story, from True’s 4 April 2004 issue:
Just how clueless is Hollywood? Very. It’s bad enough that they try to jam crap down our throats all the time, but they also demand that you sit and watch that commercial for “Tide” detergent — all 26 times it runs tonight.
I gave a talk this week at the Economics Institute here in Boulder, which is attached to the University of Colorado.
The institute “prepares” economics and business students from abroad for graduate studies here with crash courses in American culture. It was very interesting to speak to them about American media in the age of the Internet, and the changes that the Net is bringing about.
by Randy Cassingham, Founder, This is True Presented to The Online News Summit II* Washington, D.C., May 19, 1998 Copyright 1998 by Randy Cassingham, All Rights Reserved. Megatrends author John Naisbitt coined the phrase “Global Paradox,” which he says is, “The bigger the world economy, the more powerful its smallest players.” In Online Media, the Global Paradox … Continue Reading