Speak to Lead

Humor Trivializes Evil - NPR Treats ACORN Child Prostitution as a Joke

First of all, now that I have your attention, I want to make clear this is not an attack on National Public Radio.

But it was an NPR broadcast that sparked my thoughts about the power humor has to trivialize evil. How comedy can move the focus from the heinous to the humorous, and in the process blunt the evil at the core of the issue.

These ideas came about on Saturday as I was listening to Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! WWDTM), NPR's "oddly informative news quiz." (Which, BTW, I generally find very entertaining.)

The topic: the ACORN sting, which documented the willingness of ACORN staff members to give advice on running a child prostitution brothel and other illegal activities. One staffer even volunteered to help smuggle the under-age girls into the U.S. from Mexico.

What I find particularly appalling is that none of the ACORN workers in the videos seemed the least bit bothered by helping enslave a dozen 12 to 15 year old girls as prostitutes. 

Unfortunately, the host and panel of WWDTM don't seem too appalled either. Here is the opening to the topic. (To hear this portion of the broadcast CLICK HERE and select "Panel II: ACORN And Fashion Week" in the right column.)

Media training/Reputation Protection: Reporter's Words You Don't Want to Read

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 2009 (WWDC 2009) opened today in San Francisco. It's described by Apple as "the premier technical event for developers and IT professionals innovating with Apple platforms."

One thousand Apple engineers; 5,000 developers. A new iPhone expected to be announced.

And here is the first tweet from the Wall Street Journal's legendary dean of technology, Walt Mossberg (shown here with Steve Jobs):

waltmossbergAt Apple #WWDC where it's all about iPhones and AT&T service is overwhelmed. You'd think they'd have prepared better.

OUCH! "You'd think they'd have prepared better."! What a great first impression.

I don't have any inside info from AT&T as to what went wrong. Maybe they thought they had done everything possible. Coverage would be, it seems to me, an obvious concern. 

Still, having observed how often the obvious gets overlooked, I wonder if coverage was on anybody's checklist.

Where were the reputation czars for AT&T and it's iPhone partner, Apple?