Do you know what PATCH is? For the lucky ones who don’t — Patch is some kind of town cryer media that sets itself up in every community by hiring locals to report on what’s going on locally.
Most or all of the writers and/or editors are not professional journalists no matter how many times you put the word “journalist” through a pasta presser. In other words, no matter how much you stretch the shit, PATCH articles are usually pure shit about something that happened in some shitty town, on a shitty street on a shitty day as reported by a shitty writer,
The worst PATCH franchises are found near universities because that’s where you’ll find idealistic birdbrains who know how to write and often they deviate from the real purpose of Patch.
I’ve found one of those birdbrains in a writer named Jennifer Bradshaw. She needs to be taken down a peg or two because she is a sneak. Why do I call her a sneak? There are three reasons but I will first address the most glaring one.
PATCH is supposed to be a small town internet hand-out. It’s supposed to cover what’s happening in town– and a lot is going on in the town of New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Aside from the all-too-frequent carjackings, New Brunswick has a lot of murders, rapes, drugs, gangs, and robberies. It also boasts an exhausted, over-worked and underpaid police force. The place is basically a shithole in distress, yet this self-proclaimed “Independant” Miss Bradshaw feels fit to play her own game of Occupy New Brunswick by ignoring the fires raging about her; writing instead about a silly poll conducted by some kiddie radio station.
Why? Because she has an agenda that belies her nicey-nice Patch resume. If you read that fluff you’d think that Miss Bradshaw was about to have a cake sale to feed Ethiopia. I will not put up a link to that maudlin crap, so you’ll have to do that yourself.
Anyway, Jennifer Bradshaw is listed as the editor attached to a particular staff written piece with the decidedly disingenuous title: “WATCH FOX NEWS, BE UNINFORMED.” What?
With that title enscribed above the non-story, PATCH, as far as that which passes under the eyes of Miss Bradshaw. gives away the true agenda.
The poll that pushed FOX viewers into the short yellow bus was conducted by the college radio station at Fairleigh Dickinson University. <—– Yeah — that’s going to be REALLY scientific. How goddam stupid does this woman think EVERYBODY is?
The manner in which the piece was titled notwithstanding, Miss Bradshaw — and it will always be Miss — you needn’t have any worry on that score — is more than ample testament to the opinions of Bradshaw’s local PATCH in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
New Brunswick is a college town that is currently the home of the academically challenged Rutgers University –the school that keeps getting dumber and dumber and dumber. Too bad because it used to be a great school. .
So why is the whole thing sneaky?
Okay, the headline is misleading and patently partisan. A truly fair news organization would have come up with something like: “FDU Poll Takes A Jab At Fox News.” If I were to accidentally step on an ant when I left my home this morning, Miss Bradshaw would have written a story” “Writer Sets Out On Killing Spree.”
The sub-headline in the aforementioned non-story reads: “PublicMind says newspapers, talk radio and Daily Show all do a better job of communicating facts than cable news channel.”
Keep in mind that PUBLIC MIND is not your mind or my mind. It’s the name that FDU gave its poll. It’s so easy/lazy and journalistically sneaky to squeeze that in sans explanation. Hey — maybe I am uninformed. As a mater of fact, I am so uninformed that I never heard of this FDU poll and I have never listened to their radio station.
What’s really sneaky is that Miss Bradshaw has a shiny happy photo of herself perched in the upper left hand corner where she mindlessly looks down proudly at the piece for which it seems she is responsible despite the fact the author is listed as “Patch Staff.”
Even more repugnantly, before you get to the FDU propaganda, the brief article inserts this totally silly disclaimer which I can’t help but assume is a complete LIE!
>>Big, big disclaimer: We here at Patch aren’t saying any particular news outlet makes you more or less likely to be informed—just reporting on the fact that PublicMind’s poll came to these conclusions. Got strong feelings about the poll, one way or the other? Tell us what you think in the comments below.<<<
Here’s the thing. DON’T TELL THEM WHAT YOU THINK.
Your political opinions aside, the article talks down to you regardless of your politcal stripes. Simply stop reading Patch. That ought to boost your news IQ substanially. Just ditch it from your daily reading, because if you read PATCH, you are REALLY uninformed now that it’s done a 180.
I shan’t publish the FDU poll results because the whole thing is a mess wherein other cable news channels get hammered but Fox is the biggest target for Miss Bradshaw who must be trying really hard to get her foot into some kind of legit media outlet.
Note to Miss Bradshaw: Lady, you’re gonna make it big because you have everything it takes to shine in the elite media.
1-You don’t tell the truth in your headline (Huffington will hire you). 2-You try to play by the rules by adding a disingenuous disclaimer (CBS will hire you) 3- You write about silly things while the world is falling down around you (L.A. Times wants your resume.)
So anyway, a bunch of kids trying to grow beards at a college radio station conduct a poll and come to the conclusion that people who watch Fox News are stupid, and people who watch The Daily Show are incredibly smart because they know more about what is going on in Egypt. Why did I bother to write this whole frigging thing when this paragraph is all you needed to really know.
In the meantime, a little old lady was killed trying to cross Route 18 in New Brunswick — that’s the kind of story that Patch is supposed to write about. Poor old lady — never even got her name in the paper. To her credit, however, Miss Bradshaw did try to help a few locals try to find their lost dog and she did help a local hospital find quality nursing staff — and that is what Patch is supposed to be about. I’m not trying to be funny with those two examples. I would rather have a paper help me find my lost dog than a paper that tries to suddenly turn into a liberal tool.
NOTE: Kindly do not comment by mocking my “pathetic” website — this is my outlet to mock the stupid. I wrote this piece in 3 minutes. I am a real journalist and a real writer and a real columnist for a really real international magazine. Save the old “off your meds” “in your parent’s basement” “your website is pathetic” “you must be a really sad person” chestnuts for somebody who cares. The rest of you — please — stop reading your local PATCH. It has been taken over by pod people.
