CSotD: Fighting Media-crity
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No kidding.
If you're not a Fastrack fan, it would help to know that the characters here are the Computer Bug and Autocorrect, a virtual couple, and I find some comfort in the idea that even the Computer Bug has trouble with websites that won't settle in.
Trying to read an article that keeps leaping up and dropping down and launching video ads and spawning pop-overs is right up there with being behind the driver who won't make a left turn until there are absolutely no other automobiles anywhere in sight.
We need a new term: "Tube Rage."
The dog has learned that sudden outbursts of cursing in the car are not directed at him, and I repay him by not yelling at him when he barks at the statue of a bear we drive by regularly.
Similarly, he doesn't even cock an ear when I burst into profanity while working on the computer, and it's probably just as well that he is a dog and not a parrot, because it all must seem perfectly normal and acceptable to him.
In any case, it's encouraging to know that Bill Holbrook would mock this issue, because I've been wondering if the infuriating phenomenon was my own fault for — gasp! — using a full-sized computer instead of a phone.
However, if he's talking about it, I'm not going to take it as the price I pay for being an old fart, which, in turn, raises the question of why nobody fixes it.
The answer to which is that nobody in power ever visits their own website.
They sit around the big table and hear what wonderful things their underlings are doing with it, of course, and, having sat around that table, I can promise you that the yes-man doesn't simply agree with things the boss says, but, in turn, says things with which the boss will agree.
Things you will hear at a department head meeting:
"We have a new advertising program on the site that is raising our revenues by 4 percent."
Things you will not hear at a department head meeting:
"Our new ad program places a combination of outrageously deceptive and semi-pornographic ads next to our own articles and keeps the page from loading properly for at least three full minutes."
Meanwhile, the guy in the big chair is still having his emails printed out for him and has no idea how the Intertubes work.
At least, the big American guy doesn't know how they work. It's apparently a different story in South Africa.
There, the Daily Maverick is doing rather well as a seven-year-old daily on-line newspaper, and has just scored a coup by bringing in Jonathan "Zapiro" Shapiro, who is the nation's best-known editorial cartoonist and late of the more staid, traditional Mail & Guardian.
Zapiro will be the centerpiece of an op-ed section which will be supported by Nando, a popular chain of restaurants specializing in peri-peri chicken.
This might touch off some alarms, except that it's not the same as being sponsored by an oil company: I doubt many of the Maverick's writers will be discussing chickens in terms that would upset the sponsor, or, really, at all.
I also doubt any of them would back off if they did. It's a pretty lively bunch.
Meanwhile, back at the M&G, Dr. Jack and Curtis will be helping fill Zapiro's spot as part of an ongoing program of mentoring and encouraging young African cartoonists in what is a highly dynamic society for editorial cartoons, and not just in SA but across the continent.
To see what they've done so far, visit Africartoons and, while you're there, you might want to leave a "like" or a comment to help them pick up a grant for which they are finalists. More about that here.
Unless you're familiar with the ins and outs of politics and personalities in Africa, you'll probably find it hard to understand most of the cartoons there, but it's encouraging to see sharp pens aimed at politicians.
We're gonna need some of that over here as well.
We're working on it.
The trick is to keep working on it while you also protect the ability to get the message out there where people will see it.
The African cartoonists seem to be dealing with that part of the equation, too, and good luck to 'em.
Now here's your moment of zen
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