When ignorance is bliss, innocence is butchered by arrogance and ego fueled by ignorance itself… a tale not to be forgotten!

First of all, for my regular readers and friends: please forgive my absence. I really appreciate those of you who were worried. And of course I owe you an explanation of my last post that I think was misunderstood. My most sincere apologies.

My offline activities have taken over my regular schedule, a friend visiting from Madrid, a lot of work – which is always good - , editorial meetings, etc. That forced me to stay away from the blog and posting. Just as Courtney and Jade (¡BESITOS!), sometimes you have to set your priorities, and we blogged for fun, it was never intended to become our life reason nor our life validation forum and real life does get complicated.

As for me, I like to blog mostly to practice my English (I know it sucks! But I bet your Spanish is not that better ;) ) and be silly – some say sadistically cynic - . I deal with enough serious matters on a daily basis at work to take blogging and the blogosphere THAT serious. Oh the blogosphere! A place that behaves more like a school yard sand box than a gathering place. But it is worth the exercise, both in the sociological and creative ways, and we had had our great moments and I hope there will be more to come!

I also have to thank this weird space for some great people I have met on and offline. Starting with the former moderators Courtney and Jade, both extraordinary brilliant women, both with very busy and committed paths in life, the staple of Freaks: Ivy and Marie, such different forces of their own! And all of our regular unique visitors (commenter, readers, lurkers and even trolls – with your own (the trolls) brand of stupidity that just cracks me up! -).

Going back to my last post, March 1:

“.... and I'm still trying to recover. It was a very sad epiphany. Suddenly many things were crystal clear. I'm trying to regain hope within a hopeless equation. Looking back in time, makes me wonder if a career of almost 20 years was just garbage in a recycle bin. It really broke my heart, and not even the cynic in me can see a funny or positive side... I chatted about it with some colleagues and their jaw dropped further down than the stock market...

where are we headed to?

... more to come. I hope.”

It is not a state secret that I am related to the media. Some might believe it, some might not. I honestly think it is better if you don’t believe it; I like the privacy that online nicks provide. That post was a gut reaction of one account about Anderson Cooper’s interview with Walter Cronkite at the Judaism University in Los Angeles, California. It was such a heat breaking reading: (“ I really am not interested in Walter, so I just stared at Anderson and watched how he reacted to him and stuff.”), the images just flew over my head. Not interested in Walter Cronkite ? A living legend, journalism pioneer, historical figure and the person for whom the word Anchor (as in journalism) was coined? All the world turning events this man has witnessed first hand, and not be interested? MY HEART SHRUNK. And as I said: it was a sad epiphany. If someone like Cronkite won’t get the deserved recognition after 50 years of a spectacular career, what can someone like me expect? The reality of the industry is that the 300K+ daily copies my newspaper prints will end in a garbage can or a recycle bin and the 1.8 million daily hits the online version gets, will get lost within the ocean of bits of ceros and ones that comprises the internet. I try to put myself at Anderson Cooper’s position and no wonder he is a pessimistic as he said at in the Po Bronson interview .

A journalist job is to inform. We are the medium (hence the name media) through issues, information are presented to the masses (public). A journalist is NOT the story. Which brings me to the eternal critic we have had at this blog and shared by CNN’s founder Ted Turner of how they are marketing the network and the transition from information business to the cult of personality .

How can serious issues be address and decided upon if the information provided is sugar coated? Tailored just for aesthetics. That in itself is the tragedy that the USA media is facing. People don’t care of the life threatening situations journalists go through just to gather information, and all people care is about how cute they look? Recently Jeff Koinange was mobbed while in company of his family just after his Nigerian report. Bob Woodroff cheated death covering Iraq, and just think of all the journalists recently killed for bringing YOU the news. Fuck the ties!

Are we Anti Anderson?

There is the second point I want to share with you. A reader recently sent me an email with a copy of some comments made in a forum that claimed this blog was Anti Anderson Cooper. I can’t recall a single post at this blog that would be offensive towards Mr. Cooper. One thing is Mr. Anderson Cooper, other the show that bears his name, other Time Warner and CNN. If people can’t understand the difference it’s really THEIR problem, not ours. Are we entitled to criticize Anderson Cooper 360 and CNN? Of course. We pay for it. Or you will be happy if a restaurant serves you rotten meat?

The editorial position of The Freakspeakers have always been to be respectful towards Mr. Cooper and his private life. If you think talking about Mr. Cooper’s ass as if he were a piece of meat is respectful, or emasculating him, that is your problem. People lose perspective that CNN, agents and even family members constantly lurk around blogs and forums – and those of you with blogs with site meters have to agree -. And it is downright offensive for Cooper and his family. That, for me, is being Anti Anderson.

Due to past experiences at other boards and blogs, we decided to allow commentators to be free. People are held responsible of their comments and images. Personally I am guilty of not even checking them on a daily basis and really can’t spend my entire day checking who is trolling, who is being naughty or who is being nice. The best I could do was to have them forwarded to an email account. And only few times we have decided to delete a comment.

That been said, for those of you pointing fingers at us, at least read the posts before you make your claims. And if you decide that you still hate us, at least credit us for the image of your Avatar, we appreciate the free promotion. Wink, Wink.

Offline, but not under a rock… the interngate!

When I thought things couldn’t get worse, along came the interngate. A lot of people have their opinion on this issue, it even made it to mainstream online zines like Huffington Post and Radar, and obviously back to CNN. Some comments were so outrageous that they even blame me of the incident. Truth is, I don’t even know who she is. I am not a member of “the private, password protected community for which you have be referred and take a test in order to be admitted”, I understand that in such a close environment the paranoia must be reigning free. And they always have to blame someone. But it wasn’t me.

I’m a true believer of internships, particularly within the media industry. I got my professionalfirst break thanks to an internship as a freshman on a local TV station. I was asked to stay and never looked back. A lot of doors opened for me. When I graduated, I had a hefty résumé. My then professor always drilled us about how in this industry there is not much space for mistakes, you close a door once and it is virtually impossible to open it again. When I became a professor, I was a maniac trying to place my students in different media outlets. And I “burst with pride” whenever I see them over the airwaves – some even from Atlanta and NY -.

I feel so bad for this girl Rachel, and even that I don’t know her, I feel embarrassed of how this situation was handled and the repercussions it will have in her real life. And it is something people don’t even seem to care. There are two kinds of spinning, Trump like or Hill and Knowlton like. She chose to fight like Trump. Bad call.

Internships, are above all, a privilege. It is very competitive to access places like CNN, and for those who are accepted in the program, the future looks golden, just as it looking for Emily Rotberg When you are asked to leave an internship within a corporation it automatically shuts all its doors towards you. It’s Time Warner for heaven sake! One of the largest contents conglomerates in the world. When you messes things up at that level, there is a saying, calladita te ves más bonita! or you look cuter with your mouth shut in English. You try to keep your name clean. In this circumstances silence is the best counselor and the ego your worst enemy.

But as I stated earlier, she pulled a Trump. I bet Eliza and her blog had the best of intentions – although I’m sure Eliza’s self righteous ego got the best of her – and decided to take on the giant. Jumped in to accuse – something I have to admit she has a flair for - a company of violating an individual’s constitutional rights, what she stated as the “ethical behavior” the intern had as for not going public, she single handily crushed. Some outlets picked on the story, and obviously so did CNN. But unfortunately for this woman, not all attention is positive. Something that was meant to be a good bye for the CNN crew (couldn’t she just sent them an email, a registered letter or a phone call to say thanks?) brought scavengers over her. Thanks to Eliza’s post, her privacy was violated all over the internet and her possible real name disclosed. Was there any real need to bring this attention to this girl? No. Not only Time Warner has red flagged her, but probably other media outlets and corporations.

And I bet that exchanging information with Rachel Sklar, won’t help her either. Sklar was the mediabistro blogger that entered CNN during the night shift and took photos inside the premises without their consent and against the company’s policies, for which the employee that gave her access was fired.

Security breach is and will always be a big concern for networks and corporations. In Anderson Cooper’s case, the man is hounded. It was really sad to see the paparazzi photos of him leaving a supermarket at Time Warner Center. Being under siege affects your private life, and it seems that his only refuge is his work, and for those who has worked on TV news knows it is a cut throat environment and inside teams know were their loyalty have to stand if they want to keep their jobs. Information leaks are intolerable, and I believe that he deserves to at least be able to trust those around him at CNN.

At the comments section of my March 1, a controversy raised regarding Eliza’s charges against this blog. To be completely honest with my readers, this is something I was willing to keep away from public exposure, (remember the saying calladita te ves más bonita?), but she brought it up in the worse way possible forcing me to address the issue.

Last year I received an email of a friend that is very active within the Anderson Cooper Communities giving me a heads up about Eliza’s intentions and mean spirited comments about the blog. I barely knew Eliza, and truly gave her the benefit of the doubt. I have always though she went through great lengths basically blogging over AC360’s run down and I visit the blog once in while, although I am not an active participant, then again, I barely participate IN MY BLOG!

Then at the beginning of this year, a friend contacted me and stated that Eliza had concrete plans to threat the blog. I waited, with disbelief, until I received the email. It made me laugh! It was a threat veiled with concern. Since when anyone has to excuse their blogging. Blogger.com is clear in its rules, they only interfere with Child Porn and Hate Speech and they don’t attend issues regarding “blog wars”. And if something I have learn is that you don’t react to that kind of threat. It is worthless. Its only intention is to intimidate (call it cyber mobbing or harassment ) and usually people already have their mind set, so there is no actual use to get into a controversy.

Things started to unfold. While I didn’t answer the email, we started receiving trolls (one of them recently appointed a mod at AC360review) . People who never participated nor visited (upon the sitecounter’s registered data) started to state the same charges than Eliza, and funny enough most had a similar traffic pattern. Eliza endorsed a friend to be a member of the “the private, password protected community for which you have be referred and take a test in order to be admitted” and she was turned down because she participates in this blog and is considered close to me… WTF?!, then, while I was recuperating of the Cronkite shock, she emailed a frequent reader luring her to join her in trashing the blog. If I hadn’t read the emails, I wouldn’t have believed it.

I understand the circle the “ander communities” have. And trashing, trolling and blaming comes with the territory. But at least no one can say I go around posing as a white sheep, when in reality its a wolf…

So there you have it. My moment of Zen.