Friday, May 25, 2012

Geography Lessons Needed

I may not be the brightest bulb to have ever been screwed into the socket but as far as my knowledge of the world goes I do shine at least a little bit. In fact, I am so bright, when it comes to world geography that I know that someone over at Fox new online is either a moron or just cannot find enough new worthy items to fill in the blanks. being that the world is a busy place, with lots of news, I have to imagine it is the former - someone there is a moron at least when it comes to geography. Why do I say this? well, I visited Foxnews.com today as usual and I went to their World news page. On that page they give a listing of news articles under headers by region, 3 of them today when I looked, Mideast, Europe and Asia. Then under those headers they show articles that should, one would expect, pertain to those regions. Now bear in mind, there were many articles listed on each header, but I wanted o specifically show why someone at Fox is not all that up on geography so I only kept the ones that were mistakenly put under a header:
 

Mideast

Is China a developing country? Key question unresolved in latest round of climate talks

Europe
Is China a developing country? Key question unresolved in latest round of climate talks

Asia
Fears that Europe lacks plan to keep Greece from falling out of the euro hurt markets

Giant new telescope to be built in South Africa and Australia

That was all found at this link, although you must bear in mind, it may all have been changed by the time you visit the link as it is a news site and things change pretty rapidly in the news. It is amazing, to me, as what passes for a professional website today, especially one purporting to be the site of a major news organization. Don't get me wrong, I like FoxNews.com, it is my favorite online source for the news. I just wish they would start to hire some reporters, or website developers and editors with a little bit of education 4th or 5th grade smarts when it comes to things like geography.

Heck, both south Africa and Australia most certainly do not belong grouped under Asia, they are continents in and of themselves. Europe likewise. As for China falling under both Europe and the Mideast - which one does it fall under? Oh, wait a minute, that's right, - it is in Asia! So why put articles about those countries and or continents under the obviously wrong regional header? It does not matter if each article in some way shape or form addresses those other regions and or continents in addition to the one mentioned in the article's title; they should be listed under the regional header most applicable to the crux of the piece - that which is expressed in the title of each article.

It is simply amazing, to me, how ignorant the person must be who listed those articles under those headers. American education and excellence in the workplace most assuredly have seen their sunset.

All the best,
Glenn B

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