Indy Digest: Nov. 13, 2023
The quiet of my home or office is often pierced by me uncontrollably shouting two words: “NOT breaking!”
The cause of my yelling: I’ve just received an email from a news source with “Breaking” in the subject line, followed by some sort of headline for a story that is, in no conceivable way, “breaking.”
Maybe I am being old-fashioned here (insert meme here of old man yelling at clouds), but a “breaking” news story should have two elements: 1) The information has to be new. 2. The information must have some semblance of importance.
The media source that tends to set off my “NOT breaking!” holler most often is The Desert Sun. Here are just a few recent email subject lines for stories The Desert Sun deemed to be breaking:
- Breaking: Coachella Valley Firebirds have ‘raised the bar’ with most season ticket holders in AHL
- Breaking: Stagecoach 2024 is sold out. But here’s how to join the waitlist — and catch other country concerts coming to the… (That’s the headline. It just stopped mid-sentence.)
- Breaking: New details about rainy, windy weather coming to the Coachella Valley this week
- Breaking: Gas prices in Riverside County have fallen every day for over a month
- Breaking: LIVE: High school football scores: Four desert teams play in 2nd round of CIF-SS playoffs
- Breaking: A veteran ‘Jeopardy!’ winner from Palm Springs did it again Friday night (This email arrived Saturday morning, 14 hours after the show aired.)
NOT breaking!
The problem with these idiotic emails is that they make me pay less attention to news emails that actually include new and important information. Because The Desert Sun really sent an email on a Saturday not long ago that had the subject line: “Breaking: 5 new places to eat in the Coachella Valley,” I am less likely to notice the email on a Monday morning that says “Breaking: One person dead after car crashes into traffic light pole in Palm Springs,” about a fatal traffic accident that closed a road on which I may actually travel.
Look, I get it: It’s hard for a news organization’s emails to get noticed by readers these days, especially when email providers like Gmail often redirect them away from the primary inbox into “promotion” or “updates” tabs (which happens more often than not with this very newsletter).
But that’s still no excuse. If you ever get an email from the Independent with a subject line that starts with “Breaking,” I can guarantee you the news will be INCREDIBLY timely and important—but a whole lot of readers won’t notice it, because “Breaking” has been so badly abused by the likes of the local Gannett daily.
From the Independent
All About Women: DET’s ‘Five Betties’ Is a Raw, Edgy and Funny Look at Power, Friendships and Sexuality
By Bonnie Gilgallon
November 12th, 2023
Jen Silverman’s fantastic play It gives us a glimpse into the lives of five women named Betty, each of whom is in desperate need of some sort of change.
Growth via Collaboration: Local Indie-Pop Trio Koka Brings the Catchy Melodies on Debut EP ‘4EVER’
By Matt King
November 11th, 2023
Local indie-pop group Koka, which has been performing since 2018, released its debut EP, 4EVER, on Oct. 26.
Wife’s POV: Sofia Coppola’s ‘Priscilla’ Is an Engrossing Take on Elvis and His Bride
By Bob Grimm
November 13th, 2023
With its scaled-down, quieter approach, Priscilla is a superior film to last year’s Baz Luhrmann epic.
Stories of Homelessness: Revolution Stage’s ‘Off the Street’ Uses Song to Tell the Tale of Palm Springs’ Unhoused Population
By Valerie-Jean (VJ) Hume
November 13th, 2023
Revolution Stage Company’s production of the new musical Off the Street shines a light on the lives of Palm Springs’ unhoused residents.
Cold-Blooded: Michael Fassbender Is Perfect as a Soulless Murderer in David Fincher’s ‘The Killer’
By Bob Grimm
November 13th, 2023
Michael Fassbender imbibes the movie with a real chill: His Killer is the scariest of bad guys.
More News
• Driving in Los Angeles tends to difficult during the best of times—but the indefinite closure of a portion of Interstate 10 could make things VERY difficult for a good, long while. The Associated Press says: “Arson likely caused a massive weekend fire that has indefinitely closed a vital section of a freeway in Los Angeles, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday. … The fire left the columns of Interstate 10 charred and chipped and the deck guardrails were twisted and blackened. Crews shored up the most damaged section for the safety of workers clearing the debris. It’s still unclear what structural damage, if any, the blaze caused to the freeway. Engineers were assessing the situation Monday. The freeway is used by 300,000 vehicles daily and the closure is expected to be felt well beyond the city, including possibly slowing the transport of goods from the twin ports of LA and Long Beach, federal officials have said.”
• Small news publishers in Canada have been unsuccessfully asking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for help, as they’re being badly harmed by that country’s Online News Act—which has a lot of similarities to the proposed California Journalism Preservation Act. Politico reports: “Documents obtained by POLITICO through an Access-to-Information request reveal urgent appeals from freelancers and small news outlets who spelled out for top officials what would happen if they lost access to sharing news through both Google and Meta. ‘Between Google and Meta announcing their intention to exit news, we now expect a catastrophic 60 percent reduction in traffic,’ ZoomerMedia’s chief operating officer Omri Tintpulver wrote to the prime minister’s office and heritage officials. ‘Jobs are going to be lost. Soon. Entire divisions may also be lost.’ … As the clock ticks down to Dec. 19, the tripwire deadline that will spring the Liberal government’s Online News Act to life and prompt Google to follow in Meta’s footsteps by ending news sharing in Canada, a fuller picture has emerged of the behind-the-scenes jostling and dire warnings made by smaller players.”
• Meanwhile, here in the United States, the former president is calling his opponents vermin, which is completely normal and in no way cause for concern. (Sarcasm alert.) The Washington Post says: “The remarks came during Trump’s campaign speech Saturday in Claremont, N.H., and in a post on social media. ‘We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections,’ Trump said in New Hampshire, repeating the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen. ‘They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream.’ Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University, said in an email to The Washington Post that ‘calling people “vermin” was used effectively by Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to engage in violence.’”
• After numerous scandals involving justices (particularly Clarence Thomas) getting tons of freebies from bazillionaires and others with business in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, the court today announced it is developing a new code of conduct. CNN explains: “In a brief statement the justices said that the code is ‘substantially derived’ from an existing code of conduct that applies to the lower court but has been adapted to the ‘unique institutional setting of the Supreme Court.’ While the justices reiterate in the code they should ‘maintain and observe high standards of conduct in order to preserve the integrity and independence of the United States,’ they fail to explain how the code would work and who would enforce it, and acknowledged they had more work to do, including on financial disclosures. The court acknowledged it might need additional resources to ‘perform initial and ongoing review of recusal and other ethics issues.’” It’s a start, sort of, I guess.
• A dog-food recall has been expanded—and the stuff is so dangerous that it is sickening people who merely touch it. The Hill reports: “Health officials announced Thursday that multiple people, mostly babies, have been sickened after coming in contact with dog food involved in a growing recall over potential salmonella contamination. The same day, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that the voluntary recall by Texas-based Mid America Pet Food now includes six types of cat food along with over 25 dry dog food products. So far there have been at least seven documented illnesses and one hospitalization tied to the dog food, spanning seven states: California, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Florida, Alabama, Kentucky and Minnesota. Because many salmonella cases go unreported, the true number of cases may be higher, the CDC says. ‘People in this outbreak got sick from touching recalled dog food, touching things like dog bowls that contained the dog food, or touching the poop or saliva of dogs that were fed the dog food,’ the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement posted online. ‘Most of the sick people in this outbreak are infants.’” The brands include Victor Super Premium Dog Foods, Wayne Feeds Dog Food, Eagle Mountain Pet Food and Member’s Mark. Get the complete list here.
• The CNBC headline is: “Patients are lining up for $2,500 full-body MRI scans that can detect cancer early.” The story starts off with an anecdote about a spinal surgeon who got the scan—which revealed a cancerous nodule in her lung, at a time when she had been experiencing no lung pain or issues. Some details: “Curious and concerned patients like Santarosa are flooding Prenuvo’s nine clinics in the U.S. and Canada. There’s so much demand that the 5-year-old Silicon Valley-based company has announced 11 more locations opening by 2024, including one in London and another in Sydney. … Prenuvo CEO Andrew Lacy said he wants to help customers understand what’s going on beneath their skin, which his company’s technology can do by identifying more than 500 conditions like cancer, multiple sclerosis and brain aneurysms. As of now, the scans have a limited audience because they aren’t covered by insurers, requiring patients to pay out of pocket.” The nearest Prenuvio office is in Los Angeles, by the way.
• And finally: Did you know YOUR car may be collecting data and information about you—that you don’t own, and that your repair shop of choice may not be able to access? Two legal professors, writing for The Conversation, explain: “Until recently, repairing a car involved connecting to its standard on-board diagnostics port to retrieve diagnostic data. The ability for independent repair shops—not just those authorized by the manufacturer—to access this information was protected by a state law in Massachusetts, approved by voters on Nov. 6, 2012, and by a nationwide memorandum of understanding between major car manufacturers and the repair industry signed on Jan. 15, 2014. However, with the rise of telematics systems, which combine computing with telecommunications, these dynamics are shifting. Unlike the standardized onboard diagnostics ports, telematics systems vary across car manufacturers. These systems are often protected by digital locks, and circumventing these locks could be considered a violation of copyright law. The telematics systems also encrypt the diagnostic data before transmitting it to the manufacturer. This reduces the accessibility of telematics information, potentially locking out independent repair shops and jeopardizing consumer choice—a lack of choice that can lead to increased costs for consumers.“
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