Ever seen the guy that crashes someone else's party and ends up sleeping on the couch indefinitely? That's me, and Morning Meeting is the party.
I've always read a lot of news, and I have always thought that the mainstream media misses a lot of good opportunities. That's due to a number of reasons: not hanging out in the right places, not being interested in the right things, not paying attention to the small story hidden in the big story, or not being willing to take a chance on a fringe story.
When I heard Al was going to do a daily list of story ideas, I perked right up. Here was my chance to help feed some interesting stories to the media, and I didn't even have to put my name and reputation on the line.
I probably send Al between 3 and 10 stories per day. He usually picks up on at least one per day. The thing is, I never know what he is going to love or what he is going to discard. Regardless of what I believe he will think about a story, I am invariably wrong. That, to me, is as interesting as the stories themselves. Sometimes, I'll send oddball things just to get his reaction -- and many times he'll run them!
I try not to send Al anything that is being covered by more than a handful of news sources unless they are missing an important angle. Some stories come from news aggregates like Slashdot, Fark, MetaFilter, and Google News. I also use fact aggregates like Cryptome, and government feeds like the State Department’s Washington File.
My favorite stories are the ones that are way out there, things that the mainstream media would never think of covering. Here are a couple of my favorites that Al used:
Cutoffmyfeet.com
This was a story about a guy named Freck who was in an accident and was partially paralyzed from the waist down. He was formerly a runner and he only wanted to run again, but to do that, his feet would have to be amputated to accommodate a special set of hopped-up prosthetics. His insurance company wouldn't cover amputating feet, even if they were atrophied. So, Freck decided to cut his feet off himself, live -- online -- with a makeshift guillotine, and make a bee-line to the hospital, something his insurance would cover. The story here is not just the bizarre nature of the obvious, but what has happened with insurance companies such that they make no exceptions to policy at the expense of someone's livelihood, and the extreme torture one person is willing to go through to regain some normalcy. (Note: Freck has postponed the date numerous times. I can't say that I blame him.)
Cow parts everywhere
You can say you're vegan, but you can't practice it. No matter how hard you try, nearly every single thing you touch has some cow parts in it. Vegans especially want to steer clear of hospitals, where cows are used for everything from insulin, heparin, steroids, to brain surgery implants. There's no escaping it; even if you use your Anthrax kit to tape up your house with duct tape and plastic sheets, both of those use rendered fat. So, try as PETA might, I can assure you that human consumption of animals will never, ever, ever end. If PETA did get their way, it would set us back 300 years.
Other favorites fall into what I call the "tinfoil hat" category. This includes the crazy stuff you would hear on Art Bell or Jeff Rense. I love this type of news because there is usually some element that is completely undeniable, yet totally unexplainable. It was on a tinhat site long ago that I first heard of a little sickness called SARS. The thing about the tinhat sites is that they are right more often than people give them credit for.
Currently I'm saving string for Al on "Rods." Rods are quick-moving objects (probably bugs) unseen by the naked eye that show up repeatedly on broadcast video. Check out some of the rods that showed up during the live broadcast of Baghdad on Fox News. This type of story is a sweeps week ringer.
I urge journalists to seek out the obscure, hang out where you normally wouldn't, question everything, and don't be afraid to run with a story that has no logical conclusion. And, of course, keep reading Morning Meeting.
