As I do every morning, even today I was roaming around the net to some of my preferred sites when I stumbled upon this post by Seth Godin, who is well known marketer. Anyway, the topic of his blog post was “the problem with cable news thinking”. In his post he goes on to give an example of what cable news channels do often, then provides a list of how such channels “amplify the worst elements of emotional reactions” in their viewers!
Here is the list:
- Focus on the urgent instead of the important.
- Vivid emotions and the visuals that go with them as a selector for what’s important.
- Emphasis on noise over thoughtful analysis.
- Unwillingness to reverse course and change one’s mind.
- Xenophobic and jingoistic reactions (fear of outsiders).
- Defense of the status quo encouraged by an audience self-selected to be uniform.
- Things become important merely because others have decided they are important.
- Top down messaging encourages an echo chamber (agree with this edict or change the channel).
- Ill-informed about history and this particular issue.
- Confusing opinion with the truth.
- Revising facts to fit a point of view.
- Unwillingness to review past mistakes in light of history and use those to do better next time.
My first reaction was to agree with him. Though I do not live abroad any more, the issues that he points out are so reflective of the pervasive reality conveyed everyday by the media in Albania. Now there are variations, and while I cannot say that no. 5 is always true, the rest the topics seem to be right on the money.
Just some food for thought!
Well, though that is not true for me, it can be so if you hang around Tirana’s pubs and bars, especially around the Block area at night time.
Elevated levels of music noise and smoke-filled rooms are an all-year-round problem which gets worse in the colder seasons of the year.
Meanwhile, music noise levels are a ‘thorn in the flesh’ for the inhabitants of the apartment buildings around or above such places of “zombie like” entertainment!
In the past several weeks a couple of newspapers have given special attention to this issue by voicing the concerns of the inhabitants in their daily pages. The issue has gotten to the point that now the Tirana municipality and other related authorities are intervening to remedy the situation by issuing warnings and fines to those who break the rules. Continue reading →
The night of Sunday, September 06, 2009 at exactly 11:50 PM an earthquake shook the buildings in Tirana. It was not strong enough to destroy anything, but it could definitively be felt on the 4th floor of the apartment building where I live.
To me this was my first experience aware during an earthquake. The other times I have not felt it at all or have not been awake to experience it. It was somewhat of a scary experience especially as I have always been concerned over the construction quality of apartment buildings in Tirana. And times like tonight bring those thoughts rushing in.
I was very tempted to leave the house, run downstairs and wait until it passed, but it did not last more than 10-25 seconds, may be longer for those who are more sensitive.
Anyway, since I was awake I did not want to miss the opportunity and write something about the experience. Friends all over Tirana are telling me that they felt it too. While just now, someone told me that the epicenter was near Elbasan at about 2 kilometers of depth.
I cannot say that I have read much of anything that the former Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha has written, but it was almost refreshing to read about one of his some 70 books from the perspective of an Englishman writing for the Guardian online.
Also the picture of the statue of the dictator in the main square, which was pulled down by protesters about 19 years ago brings back memories for me. I was very young then, but I did witness the event at less than 100 meters from it. Continue reading →
It’s the end of the summer season and the weather has started to cool a little bit. But more interestingly, majority of the people are either on vacation or out of town. This is quite visible by the reduced number of people and cars on the streets everywhere you go.
Yes, even the city gets to take some days off from the intense, chaotic and noisy routine of everyday Tirana.
You should be able to enjoy it till the end of the month of August. It is then that people start to make their came-back and from then on things are never the same, at least till the next summer season!
If there are parts of the city that you want to visit or just to walk around the streets, at ‘reduced risk’ of being run over by cars, you may just notice that the city has trees, some quiet streets, some interesting hidden-away house, building or even a small park that you might just be surprised by.
Enjoy it while you can, that’s all I will say!
This past week I was so sad to see how one of Albania’s most wanted criminals, Dritan Dajti, killed five people in a shootout on Friday, including four police officers.
The fact that he knew about the police going to arrest him and could even “ambush” them, just tells a sad story about how these criminals have infiltrated the police. Anther thing that saddens me is the fact that the four policemen who went to arrest him were not even wearing bullet-proof vests.
If you have been following the news lately then you must have heard about the European Commission’s decision to grant visa-free travel to three Balkan countries – Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, while Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Kosovo where left out for technical reasons.
From the people that I have been talking to as well as from my own opinion of this issue, I have to say that the news did not come as of a particular surprise to most. However, the fiasco of the general elections might have had something to do with the general disregard for the news. There is that sense that in a time of regular disillusionment by politicians and the government what can one more bad news do to us? Continue reading →
