1. The media ignores what is important.
Think about it this way: if you were a high government official and watched as -- all in a couple of weeks time -- it is revealed, right out in the open, that you suspended the Fourth Amendment, authorized torture, proclaimed yourself empowered to break the law, and sent the nation's top law enforcement officer to lie blatantly about how and why the 9/11 attacks happened so that you could acquire still more unchecked spying power and get rid of lawsuits that would expose what you did, and the political press in this country basically ignored all of that and blathered on about Obama's bowling score and how he eats chocolate, wouldn't you also conclude that you could do anything you want, without limits, and know there will be no consequences? What would be the incentive to stop doing all of that?
2. Even so, it is biased.
One other point to note about all of this is that these fixations are as skewed as they are vapid. Barack Obama is an exotic elitist freak because he went to Harvard Law School and made $1 million from his book. Hillary Clinton can't possibly have any connection to the Regular Folk because her husband, who grew up dirt poor, became quite wealthy after being President. John Kerry was completely removed from the concerns of the Regular People because his second wife was rich.
By contrast, George W. Bush was a down-home, salt-of-the-earth Man of the People despite being the grandson of a U.S. Senator, the son of a President (who greatly magnified his riches in his post-presidency), and the by-product of an extremely wealthy, coddled life. Ronald Reagan was pure Americana despite spending most of his adult life as a very wealthy Hollywood actor (and converting his post-presidency into far greater riches still). And John McCain is as Regular a Guy as it gets, even though he dumped his first wife (the mother of his three children) after she was disfigured and disabled by a near-fatal car accident so that he could marry his much younger, much prettier, and extremely wealthy heiress-mistress, whose family riches have fueled his political career and sustained a life of luxury for almost three decades (that's how "McCain's Sedona ranch" -- i.e., his compound -- came to be).
It would be bad enough if our political press were obsessed with such trivialities. The fact that they do so in such a Republican-leader-worshiping manner makes it only that much worse, particularly given that it's this dynamic, more than anything else, that has determined the outcome of our elections.
--- As for me, the network channels - ABC, NBC, CBS long departed from my viewing list; CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and maybe I've forgotten some soon followed. Times, Newsweek and the like were casualties long ago. Currently only The New York Times enters my house.
Spot on. I have been shocked by the lack of news since I got here 18 months ago. The media reports on pretty much nothing. And when they do they have a very slanted political view - of internal politics. I compare this to the BBC and Sky News while I lived in the UK for 4 years and it makes me miss the UK. And that takes alot. One challenge is that people want heroes to be perfect. And they are not. They are humans like us all - with flaws and all. But it is through people like yourself that we are kept in the news. People who analyse the media and try to get to the little bits of "real" news. Keep it going!
ReplyDeleteYou are so going on my blogroll!