Walgreens commercial touts myth

The new Walgreens flu shot commercial ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF13r0MjnnQ ) shows a couple wearing heart stickers on their arms, indicating that they got flu shots at Walgreens. The man and the woman are then seen coming into contact with other people throughout their day, and then at the end of the day, coming home and picking up their infants.

The message implies that if you get vaccinated, you will protect those around you, as if you are a barrier against spreading viruses between other people with whom you connect.

The problem is that when you get vaccinated, you are protected from the viruses, but that does not mean that viruses cannot be transported on your skin or clothes to the people you physically contact.

The responsible thing to do is pull the commercial and rewrite a new commercial that specifically states that viruses can be transported by people who are vaccinated and it is important that you wash your hands frequently, get vaccinated and not rely on the "herd protection" myth.

SPFLD Mom misses Jeopardy on WAND

Mom sat down to watch Jeopardy today at 4:30 PM but was shocked to learn that it just ended as she turned on her television.

WAND-TV suddenly changed the schedule in a bid to get a scoop on other networks reporting on the Rod Blagojevich story. They aired a news program they called "First News at 4:30."

Really? How many moms did you piss off by bumping Alex Trebek back one hour just so you could get your Rod Blagojevich scoop?

Other networks were oblivious to this strategy. WCIA had Oprah with guest Ted Haggard and his wife; WICS had Judge Judy; The CW had Tyra Banks. Fox had an old episode of Friends.

Mom switched over to Oprah, and clutching her chest and groaning in agony over the BS spewing out of Ted Haggard's mouth.

WAND has blown its news load prematurely. I hope it was worth it.

Journalism on the Internet

Some publications like the Wall Street Journal are creating nice public previews for their subscriber-only content. You get the gist, but you don't get the story. The Wall Street Journal is a very large umbrella under which a few select journalists can hide from the exploitive Internet. It's a good model to follow, and it represents the future of journalism very well. News will no longer be generalized and aggregated in one place. Instead, it will be segmented into categories based on relevant topics, each with its own special umbrella.

Journalists who specialize in pets or who specialize in food will be invited to reside safely under their respective topical umbrellas of online subscriber-only content, a kind of magazine format for subscribing users. The online specialty magazine will then sell the best articles to larger aggregation services that provide a service to users who would rather subscribe to a general news format.

If you're good enough at writing and you have a huge audience following you, you will arrive to find a comfortable work environment with benefits and a great salary, eventually, maybe. But you will also find yourself at the whims of an editor or manager, who will dictate your work activities. The solution is free agency. Produce your own stuff on the Internet and create your own subscriber income through PayPal.com merchant services. You will also need to create a website with some sort of subscriber management system. I expect to see such a service available soon for independent authors who want to be their own bosses.

After you have your subscriber service set up, you will need to join Facebook and post some of your works either a few days late, or partially somehow, sort of like the Wall Street Journal.