HOCKEYBEAR was very sad to hear that my old pal Neil Armstrong died recently. I was on the committee of space-faring species that welcomed him to the moon, along with Flipper, Lassie, and Mr. Ed. That's the part of the moon landing that the government tries so hard to keep hushed up. What HOCKEYBEAR found really confusing was how the news media reported on the death of a human hero. The
Anchorage Daily News had the headline "Neil Armstrong, first man to walk on moon, dies at 82." CNN had a
video report called "Armstrong, first man on moon, dies." HOCKEYBEAR thinks there are three types of humans who do not know why Neil Armstrong is famous: 1) those who are too young and thus unlikely to purchase newspapers or cable; 2) those so unfortunate that they did not receive a proper education and thus likely to also be too unfortunate to afford a newspaper; and 3) those too stupid to know who he is and who are unlikely to be interested in keeping up with the news. HOCKEYBEAR's point is YOU DO NOT HAVE TO EXPLAIN WHO NEIL ARMSTRONG IS. Every human interested in paying for the news knows who he is!
Most humans agree that the prominent national media has grown quite complacent. HOCKEYBEAR sees this in the reports on the foot-ball game where the small humans of Michigan were defeated by the less-small humans of Alabama. ESPN's
Gene Wojciechowski, by no means the most odious "reporter" at that network, filed a story about how the less-small humans of Alabama "played with a purpose" and were "hungry" to win. HOCKEYBEAR has no doubt that this is true, but I also have no doubt that the small humans of Michigan "played with a purpose" and were "hungry" to win. That is not news, only meaningless cliché. HOCKEYBEAR is not impressed.
Meanwhile, the student reporters at
The Michigan Daily were ready with two
separate analyses dissecting the foot-ball strategies and execution that resulted in the defeat of their small humans. Unlike reporters at big media outlets, who are relatively secure in their jobs and can afford to be lazy, student reporters are fighting to make names for themselves and these days are producing better reporting than the "professional" media. HOCKEYBEAR is, of course, most interested in hockey than foot-ball, and notes that Matt Slovin of
The Daily produced the most important hockey journalism of 2012 by reporting on the UNHOCKEYBEARLIKE shenanigans of the Kitchener Rangers. The newspaper has since "
clarified" that story by apologizing that it did not include facts that were not known at the time the story was published and would not have come out in the open if the story had not been published. HOCKEYBEAR is happy to see that steps are now being taken to cut down on cheating in the OHL, even if my favorite OHL team, the Windsor Spitfires, were punished. None of these steps would have happened without student journalism.
Last time I demonstrated a fairly standard campus destruction on North Campus. In columns to follow, I will show you subtler ways to destroy a campus. To show you how destroying independent student journalism can make destroying a campus much easier, The University of Georgia will tremble beneath my rage!
