Keeping BP Honest And An Interesting Study On Kids And Race

Hi everyone. I'm really short on time, but I thought I'd drop some bullet points of awesomeness on you. Away we go:

• Our anchor is done with the playing around, people: "...a lot of developments to tell you about tonight, but, first, let's just cut through the B.S. Excuse the language." ANDERSON COOPER! Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?! *clutches pearls* THINK OF THE CHILDREN.

• For those of you new to the blog, I previously suggested an entire segment be called "That's Bullshit." So, you know, fun with irony.

• I'm not completely sure, but it really looked like our anchor actually did the Magic Wall segment live (ZOMG!). I don't know, the live-bug was being kinda wonky. It would make sense though given how jittery he seemed--like someone gave him a Red Bull before the broadcast. See Anderson, you made it through and nobody died. (That we know of! Dun dun dun! Did I mention I'm tired?)
  

• Well, this is a change of pace for our blank-slated anchor: "This is like in Katrina, when politicians said, now is not the time to point fingers. Remember that? Look, you all know what's going on out there. It's not in BP's interest to have accurate figures on how much oil is gushing out of that pipe every single day. It's not good public relations." Calling a spade a spade. I like it.
  

• Actually, the honesty-keeping of BP was pretty good tonight. And yay Douglas Brinkley. Like that guy.

• 360 wants YOU, BP! Anderson is chomping at the bit to interview the snot out of any of them. Think he'll ever get takers?

• Oh look, political heads-in-boxes talking about Sarah Palin. Snooooze.

• The New York Times has a piece out busting Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal for saying he served in Vietnam when he really didn't. This bullet point isn't to point out douchebaggery, but rather to state my surprise that Anderson and panel are actually shocked by this. We have our moments, but for the most part, we're still living in a very low accountability world. Politicians/officials say bald-face lies all the time and don't get called on it. Hell, at this point Blumenthal might even actually believe he served in Vietnam. People go on the TeeVee spouting made up facts and figures and no one bats an eye at them. This is why I got so excited when Jake Tapper teamed up with Politifact to fact-check This Week.
  

• You know those whack-a-mole carnival games? The one where you have a mallet and you smack the little creature every time it pops up? Basically, I want my journalist to be the mallet, and every time there's an untruth floating around out there.."whack!" It's a pretty good deterrent for idiocy. So what I'm saying Anderson Cooper, is that I want your arm to be tired by the end of the broadcast.

• And I found it interesting that our anchor cited bloggers as the people who check everything and not, you know, his own show that actually has traction, but I'm probably reading that unfairly.

• I like the opening of the race study segment with Anderson sitting and talking to us. Very 60 Minutes.

• The segment itself was really interesting, though disturbing. As stated, it was simply a pilot study. The social psychologist in me kept wondering if there were variables skewing the results. What would happen if the children were given the option of "none," as in, "there is no dumb child." Should the questions have been asked twice--once with a black questioner and once with a white? Would that in of itself have distorted data? Lots of things to think about. I wish Anderson had further questioned the girl who said she sometimes thought her skin color was nasty. That has to come from somewhere. Pretty heartbreaking. Anyway, I'm glad they're doing this series. I'm not completely convinced it's statistically significant, but you can't deny that for the most part, the kids pointed very quickly.

• That's it for me. This bullet point contains a cookie...but only if you're good.