Journalism: The good, the bad and the ugly

This is a video called "William and the Windmill." This guy, William Kamkwamba, used scrap metal from a junk yard in Malawi to build a windmill to provide electricity and irrigation for his village. This is good journalism.

This is a clip from "The Soup" where Joel McHale is making fun of "Entertainment Tonight" for its coverage of the Tiger Woods fiasco. Watch how misleading the reporting is. The producers are totally exploiting the libel law public figure loophole here.



This is bad journalism.

And here is the video that changed the world in 2009. It's the footage a young Iranian woman, Neda, dying on the street after being shot at a protest in Tehran. She has become the global symbol of the struggle against tyranny.

Warning, this is graphic. You literally see the light go out of her eyes so don't watch it if you're squeamish. I included this video because it illustrates the Internet's potential to change the nature of journalism and in doing so, the world.



This is neither good nor bad. It's just simply what happened. And what happened was ugly.

However, it does prove that stubbornly ignoring the world and instead focusing our attention on bullshit programs like "Entertainment Tonight" is unacceptable, selfish and repugnant.