Brad Marley

I don't want it to seem like I despise the media, because I don't.

While I stay away from the shows that lean decidedly one way or another, I do like watching Anderson Cooper present his subject matter in a way that allows the viewer to draw their own conclusion.

For instance, if you watched last night's report on the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, you would conclude that Willingham's defense lawyer, David Martin, was, quite possibly, drunk.

With his cowboy hat sitting askew atop his head, Martin tiptoed around Cooper's questions regarding the idea that his ex-client might have been innocent, using words like "absurd" and "absurd" again to refute the preposterousness of such a claim. He challenged the investigative reporter from the Chicago Tribune(who was participating in the discussion) to name the names of the experts who said the arson investigation was faulty, then simply let out an "pssssh" when he was given the names of the experts who disagreed with his take on the trial.

If you're not familiar with this story, Cameron Todd Willingham was sentenced to die by lethal injection after he was found guilty of killing his children by setting his north Texas home ablaze on a December night in 1991. The trial lasted all of two days and the jury delivered a verdict in less than one hour.  (You can read the entire story here. I suggest you do.)

There was always a question of whether or not he really was guilty, but the evidence presented at the time was enough to put him on death row.

Since his death in 2004, fire forensic investigators have updated their procedures. Some of the science behind arson investigation presented at his trial has since been cast off as outdated.

That brings us to last night.

This story is back in the news because Texas Governor Richard Perry recently disbanded a Forensic Commission slated to publicly accept a report by nationally recognized fire expert Craig Beyler that questioned every single piece of evidence of the case. In an election campaign, there are some who question Perry's motives.

Martin, who was tasked with defending Willingham during his trial, was adamant during his interview that Willingham was justifiably handed the death penalty, but he acted like a fool on national television.

A fool who's too headstrong to realize he may have sent an innocent man to his death.

Wouldn't it make things a lot easier on the media if, like Sunday morning golfers, they got mulligans when they erred?

If that do-over was in place, here's how the headline would have read for today's breaking news event:

Empty hot-air balloon floats harmlessly over Denver skyline; absolutely no one harmed

At the very least, it would make the news more accurate.

The national media demonstrated again today why they struggle to earn our trust when they led us to believe a six-year-old boy was stuck helplessly in his father's homemade weather chaser, headed for certain injury, until the balloon crashed and we discovered the basket was empty.

Oops. 

Did anybody think to search the house before, you know, breaking into daytime soap operas across the country? Or is it now sufficient to accept the word of parents who once traded each other in for a different model?

This is the problem with 24/7 news. They tend to make things news that never should have been made news in the first place because they have the time, so we become desensitized to the important stuff.

Nowadays it takes a story of epic proportions to rattle us out of our talking head-induced daze. We would rather watch television shows about women with pickle cravings who — surprise! — didn't know they were pregnant, or arguing parents with eight kids, because they are more believable than Wolf Blitzer.

I suppose it's like eating ice cream every single day for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Eventually you'll get sick of it.

I guess it's only fitting that a magazine focused on the impact of technology on culture, the economy, and politics, has figured out a way to avoid (or slow down) a trip to print publication purgatory.

Using inventive ideas like hiding puzzles within the pages, or urging readers to find a missing reporter in the real world (who, I might add, contributed a story on losing one's identity), Wired Magazine has taken the idea that people have more fun when they're interacting with something, and parlayed it into a successful print run.

All magazines should take a cue from this strategy. It's one thing to read how fast Usain Bolt runs the 100 meters. It would be quite another to watch a video of the reporter running the same distance to understand how far we lag behind.

But rather than continue to wax on about the most recent issue, here's a haiku that I drafted just for you.

Journalist on lam
Craigslist founder will not change
Digitized Fab Four

If that doesn't cause you to run to your nearest newsstand and pick up the latest issue — before both the newsstand and magazine are extinct — I don't know what will.

I had a few final thoughts I wanted to add after my recent posts around the allegations against the University of Michigan football team, mainly that Michael Rosenberg was just doing his job, same as if I picked up my phone and called a reporter with a story idea or my wife inserted a pic line (I hope I'm spelling that correctly) into her patient.

But then the Detroit Free Press addressed them and, well, there's really nothing left to add.

If Michigan lost to Western Michigan last Saturday, I suspect this issue would have grown to epic proportions in Ann Arbor and beyond, but winning tends to sooth the savage beast.  I guess we'll have to wait until after next weekend's game against Notre Dame to pick up the story where we left off. (Kidding.)

Anyway, here's the Free Press' explanation of how this story came to be.  Worth a read, no matter which camp you are ensconced in.

The recent allegations against University of Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez provide a great example of why we need newspapers and journalism, in one form or another, to survive.  

MGoBlog, which bills itself as "a somewhat comprehensive Michigan sports blog," has been following the story closely these past few days as more information about the investigation comes to light. (If you have not been paying attention, blogs are kind of popular.)

But we can't expect – and the blogger doesn't try to indicate otherwise — that a blog written by an alumnus of the University of Michigan would be objective. It would be like a Christian blogger reacting to new evidence that Jesus Christ didn't exist: their words only serve to lather up the faithful.

Journalists, on the other hand, abide by a professional code of ethics that states "public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy."  It is their job to find the truth and report to the public.  

And that truth can sometimes manifest itself as players on a college football team who were fed up with a program that, in their minds, is breaking NCAA rules.

It doesn't matter who the coach is, which school it is, or what their record is.  If journalists are given information that the public deserves to know and, after thorough research, is deemed legit, they are obligated to report it. 

We may not like it, and we may not agree with it, but without it, we would all just be preaching to the choir, and how interesting would that be?