More badly-written paranoid dreck from everyone's favorite floundering Web daily.

October 18, 2001 1:17 PM

More badly-written paranoid dreck from everyone's favorite floundering Web daily. Like a sore tooth, I can't stop picking on Salon. (more inside)
posted by solistrato (15 comments total)

Close tags!!!!!!!!!!! AUGH!
posted by ethmar at 1:19 PM on October 18, 2001

First of all, I'm sorry about the italics.

Okay then. Granted, picking on Salon is like picking on Michael Jackson: it's too easy and rarely worth it. But this little tale - a badly-written, badly-edited first-person account of one hysterical San Fran resident's horrifying encounter with printing press residue - is a beautiful cross-pollenation of the hysteria that's overtaking people and the media idiots who are fueling it, combined with the further decline of what used to be a respectable online magazine.

Are people really this paranoid? I mean, do people actually think that they, Joe Average, are going to be swept up by anthrax? Are people's psyches rattled that much? Is the media taking THAT MUCH delight in making people paranoid?

But that's not the worst of it. The beautiful editor's note at the end:

"But the only thing I know for sure is that despite all the reassurance from politicians and the media, I believe we are totally unprepared to handle this."

So, because overtaxed safety officials, police officers and haz mat people determined that, in fact, there was an exceedingly low chance that this mysterious white powder was hazardous and acted accordingly, they're "unprepared"? How self-absorbed is this person? How clueless?

I'm sorry, but for whatever reason, this article struck me as an atrocious piece of needless fear-mongering.

At least paranoia has a price: after reading that piece, I don't think people will go for a nasal swab "just in case."
posted by solistrato at 1:30 PM on October 18, 2001

What's so wrong with this article? The point is not about some woman freaking out over finding white powder in her newspaper, but at how completely unprepared the authorities were to deal with it.
posted by mkultra at 1:32 PM on October 18, 2001

Um, forgive me, but this just seems like a first hand account of something that's going on all over the country right now. People are afraid.

I guess I'm not seeing the "drek" angle or how this is characteristic of Salon's decline? Can anyone else help me out here?
posted by ice_cream_motor at 1:33 PM on October 18, 2001

It's not as if Salon was ever worth a crap, so it's not like they've fallen from a great height or anything. Salon is a watery New Left rag that wants to be the electronic version of the Village Voice, but has neither the guts nor the focus to do so.

I wish Salon would just go ahead and die. Its death-throes are sad to look at.
posted by mrmanley at 1:46 PM on October 18, 2001

ice_cream_motor: I don't see this either. I thought the article pointed up some of the results of media hysteria. I certainly had gotten the impression that if I see *any* white powder in my mail, it is my duty to call it in, and that if I did, the cops would at least be wearing *gloves*.

I do get the impression the author of the piece may have been overreacting, but I certainly learned stuff.
posted by cps at 1:47 PM on October 18, 2001

Okay then. Granted, picking on Salon is like picking on Michael Jackson: it's too easy and rarely worth it.

Kinda like George W. Bush. or Rush. Or Dr. Laura. Or G. Gordon. Or Drudge...

Stop me when you see the trend and the point.
posted by terrapin at 1:47 PM on October 18, 2001

Salon aside, never underestimate the craziness of the American public. In the town next to mine, a woman called thepolice because at a supermarket she "spotted white powder on some donuts."--the police called a mental health place. I did not make this up! Milford, Ct.
posted by Postroad at 2:04 PM on October 18, 2001

Thanks for coming out.
posted by websavvy at 2:07 PM on October 18, 2001

True, there is a lot of hysteria, panic and overreaction going on ("I'm at Krispy Kreme! There's white powder all over! Call 911!")

That said, in thirty-five years of reading newspapers on a near-daily basis, I have never once had any kind of white powder fall out, nor have I ever seen any white powder inside "to reduce pages sticking together".
posted by chuq at 3:51 PM on October 18, 2001

I'm at Krispy Kreme! There's white powder all over! Call 911!

oh! never mind! here comes a police helicopter now!
posted by quonsar at 3:58 PM on October 18, 2001

quonsar: hahaha

asside from that, havn't all the real Anthrax cases been brown powder, not white?
posted by delmoi at 4:09 PM on October 18, 2001

Stop me when you see the trend and the point.

That you're snarky and prone to labeling people who don't care for Salon as rightwing sympathizers?
posted by MrBaliHai at 6:49 PM on October 18, 2001

Everyone is saying "i've never seen this stuff before and I've been reading for a long time". it's put on in extremely small amounts. if the machine was set wrong, then you'd get extra powder in your magazine. But if that machine was set wrong during every printing run and put too much powder in say, 100-500 magazines during every run your chances are still slim to actually see that powder. and what expertise does the writer or editor have in disease control? let me guess.. NONE. shutup and sit down you don't know what your talking about.
posted by thirdball at 8:38 PM on October 18, 2001

Yeah, the powder is used to dry the ink, and the anthrax samples have been mostly brown powder (and in some cases, not powder at all, but "crumbs," whatever that means. Anthrax bread?) -- the scary thing really is how many people are now seeing anthrax everywhere.

Like the "stay out of malls on 10/31" email hoax, the anthrax mailings are designed to put the entire country in hysterics. Why else would they mail to television media, the tabloids and the top two members of the House? Publicity and mass hysteria. That's it.
posted by me3dia at 1:04 PM on October 19, 2001