Watch Five Hours of Cable News, Get One Minute of Environmental or Science Coverage

We’re pleased to welcome new writer Anders Porter, a blogger, journalist, and Swedish/English translator from California currently living in Sweden. He blogs on his person website at Anders Porter dot com. This is his first post, so feel free to verbally haze his noob ass.

When I think of cable news, I think of broad, fair, and unbiased reporting. (Insert Fox News joke here.)

I take comfort in knowing that when I flip over to my MSNBC or my CNN, that the talking heads are going to take care of me, that they will dish out what I need, spoon feed me with my news food groups, if you know what I mean.

Well, according to the analysis of cable TV news coverage as reported in the 2008 Annual Report on American Journalism, the cable news networks are definitely living up to their promise of feeding their peeps. That is, of course, if you’re the kind of peep that munches on nothing nothing but politics, foreign policy debate and crime. If you’re looking for a little lettuce and tomato, that’s right - coverage of education, science and, oh yeah - THE ENVIRONMENT - then you gonna be sitting in front of that box for a long, long, long, long time. Uh-huh. Long time.

Turns out that during a five hour non-stop cable news marathon, it is likely that you will see 35 minutes about campaigns and elections and 1 minute and 25 seconds about the environment.

Sweeeeet. Nice to know we have our priorities worked out.

Link [2008 Anual Report on American Journalism] Via Framing Science

The Suburbs Are Turning Into Crime Ridden, Cookie Cutter Hellish Barrens

Remember the scene in Back to the Future II when Marty stumbles around his alternatively universed crime ridden suburban neighborhood, which is filled with empty houses and gang warfare? That is quickly becoming the reality in a many suburbs as the subprime mortgage crisis ripples out. There are neighborhoods today were 61% of the houses are empty and in foreclosure.

Formally middle and upper class homes are being rented out to shady (poor) people and are falling apart thanks to the cheap-as-possible construction methods of most conventional home builders. Neighborhoods with homes that used to sell for upwards of half a million dollars are turning into run down crime hives.

The Atlantic has a great piece titled “The Next Slum“ that explores this growing problem and the urban flight from from the suburbs. Here’s a snip:

Arthur C. Nelson, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, has looked carefully at trends in American demographics, construction, house prices, and consumer preferences. In 2006, using recent consumer research, housing supply data, and population growth rates, he modeled future demand for various types of housing. The results were bracing: Nelson forecasts a likely surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (houses built on a sixth of an acre or more) by 2025—that’s roughly 40 percent of the large-lot homes in existence today.

For 60 years, Americans have pushed steadily into the suburbs, transforming the landscape and (until recently) leaving cities behind. But today the pendulum is swinging back toward urban living, and there are many reasons to believe this swing will continue. As it does, many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s—slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay.

Link [The Atlantic]

Photo credit: Flickr user tlindenbaum, faux tilt shift added with Photoshop