About the Author

Thanks for visiting my blog!

When I started publishing THE TENSION, I originally posted articles about news, culture, current affairs, politics, and media bias. I was particularly focused on exposing junk journalism and trendy pessimism as it exists in the effeminately wimpy, yet quite illusory "culture of crisis," which an agenda-driven media perpetrates on an unwary, susceptible public. I asked, if journalists are not by nature insipid, partisan ideologues who take us all to be rubes, how else can you explain their downright lack of curiosity? In the future, historians will probably look back at 2008 and mark it as the year when 'big' media effectively forfeit their role as America's Fourth Estate to the alternative media. (See Orson Scott Card's article: Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?) Every day in traditional newsrooms across the country editors accept premises without examination and digress to a single, simple rule to manage what's news: if it bleeds - it leads. The formula produces, at the very least, a distorted and disingenuous view of the world that begs for counterbalance. And as many others have already concluded, a blog seems to be the natural place to discuss such things. Am I hard on the media? Yes, and my opinions about content are valid ones (read on).

In the current incarnation of THE TENSION, I decided to move away from discussions about the ephemeral attention of the media and post primarily about substantial military topics. When journalists feel comfortable dropping even the appearance of fairness, their agenda-driven story template suffocates any chance of rational balance when it comes to reporting about the military. The military's job involves solving real crises, unlike the media, who are hell-bent on creating illusions of crisis where none exist. I decided my blog would be a good vehicle to get out the uncovered side of the news. However, I am not am not attempting to balance my coverage; I am just trying to bring balance with my coverage.

When selecting content for the blog, I use only primary and attributable sources. Limiting the blog's content to only "named" sources will often times slow my delivery of breaking news. Be that as it may, articles I publish here are reliable and truthful, and are presented without a hidden agenda.

That said, on occasion I will offer editorial comments. However, my written opinions, which are generally more sarcastic than sanctimonious, tend to be mercifully brief observations, even if they do sometimes descend into the pejorative. The greater mission here is to let the subject matter itself define the frame of reference for the content.

While we are talking about 'framing' the content, you may be surprised to know I actually have a degree in journalism and I have made a living as a writer (and thus, I have a valid opinion on the state of the media). Sadly, though, my education was not from one of those big liberal schools known for their esteemed journalism departments. Such as were, my career followed a path away from the dark side. Luck smiled on me when I found work as a technical copy editor creating and maintaining knowledge bases for a very large dot-com outfit back in the heady Internet bubble days of the late 1990s ... and smiled again when I parachuted to safety, stock options securely in hand, short moments before the bubble burst.

Since that fateful landing seven years ago, I have been languishing in the ranks of the gainfully unemployed. Eventually growing restless from a pastime free of word-counts and deadlines, I started blogging in 2005 as a leisurely exercise simply to see how many posts I could post within a month. That which remains -- in all its deliberately austere glory -- is the original effort thousands of pages later. And please note that I am the only one blogging on my own dime here.

If, by chance, you think you would be remotely interested in utilizing my consummate editorial or knowledge engineering skills, please drop me a line. I'm open to suggestions!

To contact me, send e-mail to: thetension@gmail.com.

Steven Moyer
(9.27.2008)

Content Reproduction Policy

The text and image above are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. Commercial use prohibited.

All other areas of this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Except where otherwise noted, content is free to reference and link with attribution.

© 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009, Steven Moyer;
Some Rights Reserved.