life as i know it...: Emergencies and the media

Emergencies and the media

Add ICE to your cell phone contacts

I read about this last summer, but I've never posted about it. It's a simple concept. If you're hurt, and someone assisting you opens your cell phone for an emergency contact, how will they know who to call? They won't know if "John" is your husband or a business associate. They could call "Mom", but some people might not want a parent to be the first contact in case of emergency.

The ICE (In Case of Emergency) campaign promotes one simple action: in your cell phone address book, label a contact as ICE, so emergency responders know who to contact. For instance, my address book says "Brad * ICE". If your contact's name is long, put ICE before their name, so that it's visible in your address book, and doesn't get cut off.

Of course, simply having an ICE contact isn't foolproof - Someone assisting you might not know how to use your phone, you may not have your cell phone on you in an emergency, and many people won't know what ICE means. But it only takes 30 seconds to do, and it's better than nothing, right?

Richard Dreyfuss campaigns against "shaped news"

The Oscar-winning star says an obsession with delivering instantaneous news and images provides too little context for audiences to reflect and understand what is happening in the world.
...
That creates what Dreyfuss calls "shaped news" -- a version of events according to how the mainstream media want audiences to see what happened, and a violation of journalism's core value of objectivity.
...
"Do the mainstream media ever tell their readers 'Don't believe everything we tell you?' No, they don't."
...
"Information from more than one source is good. I'm totally in favor of it, even if people send propaganda. In the aggregate you can find more truth than in one opinion."