The paradox of news: information is hugely valuable before it has been reported, and worthless thereafter. We exist to find & destroy value!
— Felix Salmon (@felixsalmon) December 4, 2015
Black Friday, but for reporters https://t.co/szelNd5ZTo pic.twitter.com/NK9VDASig6
— Mike Pearl (@MikeLeePearl) December 4, 2015
Value destroyed, per the Hollywood Reporter:
After showing live television footage of inside the home of the San Bernardino mass shooting assailants, the network has apologized for the decision on Friday…
Earlier in day, in a widely criticized decision, multiple news organizations, including CNN, aired live footage from the home of assailants Tashfeen Malik and Syed Rizwan Farook, including walking around rooms and showing photographs in the household.
David Koch
This iz CNN
redshirt
I’ll fight whoever wants to fight. Come on!
David Koch
Bernard Shaw: “The skies over
Baghdadsome suburban apartment are illuminated”If Ted Turner was dead, he’d be rolling over in his grave.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
Because I’m tired of talking about murderous assholes and why they murder, I will instead tell you that you can go see Miracle on 34th Street at a theater near you on 12/20 or 12/23 thanks to TCM and Fathom Events.
NotMax
Ethics. A quaint concept.
redshirt
But can we really blame the news when such phenomena as “Curiosity Slowdowns” exists?
Bring the bodies closer!
Geoduck
While what the news jackals did was disgusting, I’m more curious how this happened at a law-enforcement level. Surely after two or three days, they weren’t done going through the apartment? Who exactly failed to keep the place secure? And if they were done.. they left stuff behind like driver’s licenses?
Omnes Omnibus
@Geoduck: They locked the door when they left. The landlord violated the law by using his/her key to let people in.
NotMax
Would take CNN’s contrition a lot more seriously if the reporter(s) were suspended.
redshirt
@efgoldman: I’m a Tae Kwon Do black belt and really good at fighting. :)
Redshift
Damn. Just found out I knew one of the victims. Hadn’t seen him in years, but still.
ruemara
This sickened me. It’s insane that they did this. Beyond the pale.
Amir Khalid
@efgoldman:
As Adam pointed out in the previous thread, Law & Order has a better budget for stationing a cop at the apartment door than the San Bernardino PD. So it might not have been police incompetence.
NotMax
Sign of the times?
Went to post office today. On the door was this pre-printed notice:
We will be closed to observe Christmas on December 26.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
Or how about a cool version of “Joy to the World” featuring Leslie Odom Jr., the Mighty Oak, and other cast members from “Hamilton”?
(Sorry, no, Lin-Manuel — the Mouse seems to be keeping the guy a little busy. But you can definitely see that Odom got his start singing in the gospel choir at church.)
scav
Piranhas will manage to get enough publicity milage out of their faux-contrition as they got out of the invasion in the first place. Journalistic Two-Fer!!
redshirt
@NotMax: Begun the War on Christmas has.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Any chance the journalists involved could face legal penalties?
amk
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
“you can go see ….. at a theater near you ”
Bad suggestion.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Still, not again.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne (tablet): No. The landlord violated the law. They just capitalized on it.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@amk:
Because you hate “Miracle on 34th Street,” or because it’s not showing near you?
If you’re worried about a mass shooter, I would avoid seeing the new “Star Wars” movie long before I avoided a small, two-nights-only engagement.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Golden Platter doctrine.
However if they removed any items without express permission, there could be a case for theft.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: San Berdo, at least the county, has had some severe financial problems, including bankruptcy.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Does that depend on whether they were smart enough not to actually remove anything from the premises? I’m assuming they were at least that smart, but you never know once the feeding frenzy starts.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: Correct. Also, depending on state law, there could be invasion of privacy issues.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman:
So that’s how you keep guests away.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@efgoldman:
If the family doesn’t sue, I would be very surprised.
scav
Bet it wouldn’t matter if someone failed to lock their door, they’d still be able to stand their ground against anyone that wandered in, let alone anyone the landlord let in unexpectedly.
Elie
Every reporter who stepped into the apartment KNEW it was wrong to do it. I have no idea why things like the suspects Mom’s driver’s license was still there and not secured or why other official papers were not as well. Someone on a previous post or on another site said that in CA what the landlord did was illegal. He had an obligation to secure the contents of this house for the family and in this case, the daughter of the couple. He has to have had the instincts of an animal but I equally fault the reporters who surely knew this was wrong. I am not sure who this will fall on ultimately, but I see a law suit with money awards in someone’s future. My advise to the family of the couple is to lawyer up with a good lawyer, not that weirdo you hired who was blaberring on about Sandy Hook conspiracies and some such. Surely they can find someone better than that….
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Strictly curious from a legal perspective (and aware it may not be your forte) – read though a revised cardholder agreement just sent me about changes regarding a credit card.
Anyway, lots of small text about how one could opt out of many of the changes to the agreement. Doing do would result in cancellation of the account EXCEPT for opting out of mandatory arbitration, which must be done explicitly and only by letter. Doing that would have (paraphrasing) no detriment or affect on the status of the account.
Which I don’t for a moment believe. Too skeptical?
It’s a gas station card which gets paid in full each month so suits or arbitration not really something that’s gonna come up, but curious regardless.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@efgoldman:
Scrooge! I like the Edmund Gwenn “Miracle on 34th Street” — IIRC, he got a richly deserved Oscar nomination for it. He keeps the whimsy on a tight leash, and that final scene in the house makes it all worthwhile. The remake is crap, though.
My favorite modern Christmas movie is, yes, “Elf.” It takes all of the best themes from “Miracle” and puts them into a modern setting. And when else are you going to see Bob Newhart as an elf, James Caan as the Scrooge-like cranky bastard who grows a heart (signaled by the heartwarming line, “Up yours”), and Ed Asner as Santa Claus?
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@scav:
In California, yes. We’ve had the Castle Doctrine for over 100 years.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: So far from my areas (such as they are) that I won’t speculate. Sorry.
redshirt
@efgoldman: Booby trapped baby would be like the worse thing in the world, and I bet it’s been done many times.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@efgoldman:
Hey, Maggie Simpson shot Mr. Burns for trying to steal her candy. You never know.
jl
I disagree with Salmon
” information is hugely valuable before it has been reported ”
Maybe true in business and finance, but in this case? What was the value of the information?
I heard the audio feed of some of this BS on the radio and found it difficult to believe anyone would watch such stupid shit, and wondered who allowed it to happen. From everything I’ve read about it, there was no news value to the information at all. WTF news value is there in some the driver’s license or social security card of a relative with no suspected involvement in the crime at all? None that I can see. What a disgusting worthless shit show.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Elie:
I kind of understand that they really, really don’t want to have to face the fact that their family members committed a horrible crime and left them to face the consequences so they hired a guy who’s telling them what they want to hear, but hiring a lawyer who depends on conspiracy theories is not going to help them at all.
Renie
Saw someplace on twitter that one of the news agencies (I think CNN) paid the landlord $1,000 to open the door. Anyone else hear anything like this.
amk
dumbya donor: donald dreck is a Hitler/Mussolini/Peron bullyionaire
David Koch
@efgoldman: Clemson losing would be sweet as it would ignite mass chaos.
redshirt
@efgoldman: College football is terrible.
BillinGlendaleCA
@David Koch: I’m rooting for the Trees(anybody playing U$C).
Anoniminous
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Our Christmas movie is Lion in Winter, the original 1968 version with Peter O’Toole and Katherine Hepburn. We were given the 2003 remake with Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close, credible but no where near as good.
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: I’m not passed out, I am killing time at SFO waiting for my red-eye back to the right (as in correct) coast.
Gin & Tonic
@Gin & Tonic: But it sure looks like nobody else is around.
Peale
@Mnemosyne (tablet): with our press, I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t leave things behind. Or snack on food in the fridge.
BillinGlendaleCA
The local news says the Feds released the apartment. They did show pictures of the landlord, I assume, removing a board over the door with a crowbar. So it was a bit more than simply unlocking the door, the door was boarded up.
sneezy
@jl:
Pretty sure Salmon is just speaking as a self-involved media douchebag. The only “value” he has in mind is that of a “scoop” and the “value” it has to a reporter. Once it’s been reported, no other reporter can get the “scoop,” and so in these terms, it then becomes worthless.
This of course is not the real value that information has to anyone other than self-involved media douchebags, but he’s not talking about that.
The so-called “reporters” pawing through the apartment in San Bernardino possibly did destroy or at least contaminate information of real value, but he’s not talking about that, either.
TheMightyTrowel
OT Greetings from the sydney qantas lounge where the champagne is drinkable and free. I don’t have time now to regale you but i had a close encounter of the MotU variety on wed and the more i think about it the more surreal it gets. God bankers are weird and repellant.
Peale
@Mnemosyne (tablet): or all our speculating about who “radicalized” them when they seemed so perfectly normal points to Alex Jones…it’s The Tsarnov mother, west coast version.
sukabi
@Peale: I’d actually be surprised if no one took souvenirs from the apartment. Fucking vultures.
Darkrose
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Oh wow. That was incredible. Thanks for posting it.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Agree about Elf.
Another Holocene Human
@ruemara: Agreed. And they knew they were wrong, looking for some FBI guy in the east coast to clear them? Bullshit.
Another Holocene Human
@Amir Khalid: Cult of low taxes at work.
Another Holocene Human
@NotMax: No it’s not, they’re unionized and bargained to get a three day weekend.
Bill Murray
@redshirt:
I’m sorry, it’s Saturday Night that’s all right for fighting