Schadelmann.com – One Year Later

I’ve been so busy on my trip here in Seattle that I didn’t realize until recently that July 21st marks the one year anniversary of Schadlemann.com!
I suppose some sort of profound reflection would be in order for said anniversary, but to paraphrase Col. Jack O’Neill when they were about to detonate a nuke on Goa’uld ship…nothing comes to mind.
For fun here’s my VERY FIRST entry…

This is a TEST of Journalspace.com
posted 07/21/2003
Category-
Testing to see if this kicks Blogger’s backside…

Ok, not that profound. But it has been fun to use this site to develop and expand upon my work and have a good time getting to know people like Nancy Rommelmann, Tiffany Stone, and other cool bloggers I’ve been reading. It is also nice having folks like A Fly on the Wall, the Queen of Sky, Cinema Minima, LAObserved.com, and many others post links to this site too. There are many others I’ve talked to or who have linked to me since starting this site up – so many in fact that any list I make will inadvertently leave out someone, and I hate doing that. It’s kinda like an Oscar speech….
I am due to attend a special screening of The Hunting of the President with Governor Gary Locke as one of the many honored guests in attedance so I’ll be posting more later. Until then, browse the archives and feel free to email suggestions and comments on the one year anniversary of Schadelmann.com!
UPDATE: The special screening of The Hunting of the President held at the newly restored Cinerama Theater in Seattle was a lot bigger than I’d expected.
Gov. Gary Locke and his wife Mona Lee (a former TV news anchor) addressed the crowd. It was unusal to see the usually placid, non-partisan Locke fire up a very partisan crowd in one of his last appearances as Governor. Also in attendance were filmmaker Harry Thomason, Susan McDougal, and the producers of the film.
The audience featured many Democratic candidates for office, including former state Insurance Commissioner Deborah Senn who is now running for Attorney General, as well as nationally reknowned political advertising creator Frank Greer, who served as media consultant to President Clinton, South African President Nelson Mandela, Senator Barbara Boxer, and others. Currently Greer is working on the gubernatorial campaign of Christine Gregoire here in Washington State.
It was definitely an interesting gathering, and I had fun talking to folks in the audience as well as various candidates for office.
The film itself was interesting, if a bit predictable. Many people like to malign Sen. Hillary Clinton’s “vast right wing conspiracy” comment for fun and profit. Such people tend to ignore that there may not be a “conspiracy” but there were a lot of people who peddled a lot of nonsense far less truthful than that Michael Moore movie the other side whines and cries about, who made a lot of money.
The combination of partisan Ken Starr’s’ $80 million fishing expedition, and the millions and millions made off of crank conspiracy books and videos dwarfs any money that Fahrenheit 911 made. And yet, the other side caterwauls on and on about how “negative” Moore is. Whatever.
This film wasn’t so much about the “conspiracy” in the end as it was more about how people who claim to be reporters tend to be more interested in “the story”, regardless of how true it is, and how feeding the 24 hour news cycle is more important than thinking things through and making sure that if you’re going to go with some big story, the ducks are all in a row.
It was also interesting to see how Peabody award winning news people were tagged as “Clinton apologists” the minute they did not report 100% what was expected of them by folks like Richard Mellon Scaife, Jerry Falwell, and the like. In other words, you’re only objective if you report what Those Who Know Best want you to say.
It’s also clear that the wacky 90s gave us the Post Truth era we have today. It amazes me still that snarky, chain-store sponsored, faux bloggers who make up stories and freely admit it are called “witty” and get to report for MTV.  
It’s definitely interesting to watch, although I’d’ suggest it’s a better DVD rental than theater film, if only because I’d rather go to the theater to escape current events instead of watch them. When is that new Stargate movie coming out?
© 2003-2006 Greg Dewar | All Rights Reserved | Originally Published at www.schadelmann.com

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