Or, alternative title, why the main stream media bites the big one. I got home from work yesterday afternoon and it was nonstop on CNN, Headline News, even frelling PBS: is Obama a patriot?! OMG. Shut up already. If I could have reached through the screen to strangle the airheads masquerading as journalists on the "Situation Room" I would have. When they weren't sucking oxygen from the rest of us by babbling on and on about how if you get distracted and forget to put your hand over your heart while someone is butchering "The Star Spangled Banner" you must not be a true American, they went off on an equally bizarre tangent attacking Wes Clark for pointing out that getting shot out of an airplane doesn't automatically mean you've got leadership potential.
It's a perfectly valid point, but the MSM leaped all over it as though (a) this was breaking news [big flash for you guys at CNN: Wes Clark has been saying this over and over in multiple settings since he came out for Obama earlier this spring. Way to go on the superstar investigative journalism front]; and (b) Clark was unpatriotic for suggesting military service, especially fairly low level military service, in and of itself should not be a litmus test for anything. (I was, by the way, extremely disappointed that Obama was frigging stupid enough to repudiate Clark's comments instead of stating the obvious: it's a legitimate critique, especially when it's coming from someone with Clark's extensive command experience. Note to Obama: If you shove enough people under the bus, sooner or later you're going to run out of people willing to ride it.)
You know, maybe if people spent less time worrying about whether or not someone conforms to their personal ideal of patriotism and more time doing stuff that could actually help this country, I wouldn't have to resort to watching 2-hour History Channels specials devoted to "Dung" just to preserve my sanity. But after observing political news coverage for awhile, discussions of 100-foot tall piles of bat guano covered with cockroaches just seem so clean in comparison.
(I am, by the way, trying to figure out how much longer Jack Cafferty is going to survive on CNN. He's the only on-air personality left there who seems relatively immune to group think.)
This is political discourse in the post-Lee Atwater/Karl Rove era: the Republicans settle on a spurious pseudo-issue that they know will resonate with the large portion of the electorate that can't handle actual issues, and the popular media grab the bait and dance at the end of the GOP line. Willy Horton, Swift boats, now flag pins: on such affairs do we now decide the course of the Republic.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Ranger Bob.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. We're so screwed by our lack of a free and informative press. I'd be happy to have some fact as news instead of opinion all the damn time.
I'd take issue with one thing, Dcup: our press is quite free, but our papers and media outlets use that freedom to focus on the trivial in place of the substantive. How much have you heard in the last day or so about the report just published by the U.S. Army itself describing the colossally bad planning that characterized the Iraq invasion? That should be huge news, but barely 48 hours after the document came to light, it's already been forgotten. Why? Not sexy enough, I guess. Trivial garbage is so much easier to cover in the sound-bite format that passes for news these days. The GOP strategists know this, and they play the media like Clapton with a Stratocaster.
ReplyDeletejeez louise...them people make my ass hurt..and now nra is coming out with a $15 million campaign to keep Obama from President because he's against those assault rifles and upholding the brady bill and saying that there should be a limit to 1 a month on hand gun buying..
ReplyDeletethem fucking gun nuts..I think everyone should have a gun...but I think I should be in control of the bullets..yes, you gun happy asshole, come and get 'm...
Hi, Ranger Bob. I suppose you're right about a free press, but I guess I was thinking about how so much of it is concentrated in the hands of a few corporate owners. As a result of the profit-driven business model, much of what gets driven is influenced by advertising revenue. That keeps us from hearing a lot of what should matter to us.
ReplyDeleteGood points, dcup, and with the bottom-line-driven retrenchment we're seeing all across the news business ("418,975 Laid Off At L.A. Times" or whatever) it's only going to get worse.
ReplyDeleteBack in the 80s I worked for a small town daily. We were told then that 90% of the page space was supposed to be advertising -- which meant there had to be quite a few full page ads to support whatever little dribbles of news managed to make it into the remaining 10%.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that disturbs me about corporate management these days is it doesn't matter if a business is making a profit -- it has to make an obscene profit to satisfy its corporate masters. There are quite a few newspapers or newspaper chains that have slashed reporting and editorial staff positions that had profit margins of 20% or better, but that wasn't good enough to satisfy the greedheads on the board of directors.
While we're on this topic, a friend just pointed me to a nuanced and thought-provoking video critique of the editorial decision-making process as applied to current political affairs:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euu_DMhsXQo
Oh, um... it's extremely not safe for work.
Thanks, Bob, for dangling temptation in my face.
ReplyDeleteWear your headphones; it'll be cool.
ReplyDeleteI used the headphones. Once again, a boy am I glad I wasn't drinking coffee moment. . .
ReplyDelete