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The News and the People Who Report It
I have never seen such god-awful, terrible, stupid, sad displays of journalistic incompetence since the reporting in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. These past few days in particular I have been watching the cable news anchors float the "fact" that Obama had shifted his position on Iraq. They also seem to think this upcoming visit will be his first ever. Campbell Brown said "first time ever" tonight and I nearly croaked. That was the first time I had seen her broadcast.. obviously it will also be the last.
It occurred to me that the majority of these talking heads do not care one bit about the news, or the world, or people. They can't, if they did they wouldn't do such a poor job, no? I understand if you are hosting a live daily news program you can't be expected to know everything, but this is nothing short of taking McCain campaign talking points and passing them off as actual news.
Still, shouldn't something as basic and important as to whether or not the Democratic nominee for POTUS has in fact changed his position on Iraq? And if you don't know and you think it's true because John McCain's campaign keeps saying it in print; don't you think that's something you should check on before saying it on your live television news broadcast? News shows ya know? The kind of show people watch with the understanding that you are telling them the facts?
Coming up next; Barack Obama shifting his position on ending the war? His comments today seemed to say so. You decide when we get back!
So today they all got exactly what they wanted. Barack Obama was talking to the press like they were adults! Clearly this was something the press is not used to. (Did you know McCain's plane has a couch!?) They jumped on his words as breaking news, Obama has flipped on Iraq. The McCain campaign naturally had been waiting for this and the press played right along. Later we got the story of the second press conference and the was reported was something like this.
OBAMA SAID WE ARE STAYING IN IRAQ FOREVER
THEN HE SCRAMBLED
AN UNHEARD OF RIDICULOUS SECOND PRESS CONFERENCE!
REALLY TRIED HARD TO CONVINCE US
NOPE, NOT BUYING IT
BUT YOU MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND
It's a basic outline of the same script they all used. Then we had the next story: John McCain is Awesome in Columbia!
How sad. I miss Tim Russert. At least he cared.
Comments (8)
I repeat, CNN (and FOX) are the broadcast media's equivalent to Tabloids (Globe, Enquirer, etc.).
Talk about MUCKRAKERS!
July 4, 2008 12:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Vote with your dollars - don't watch the MSM.
July 4, 2008 6:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, now you know how Hillary got treated during the primaries. I predicted this over and over. As soon as it was over they would turn on Obama. Of course, he is much less adept at handling it. I don't know who's more annoying the media or all the people who fell for it during the primaries.
July 4, 2008 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh yeah, the media was so unfair to Hillary--give me a break.
She became a professional victim. Her campaign survived as long as it did because of the press, period. Imagine if Clinton had won those 12 in a row after Super Tuesday; she would have personally been calling for Obama to get out.
The media wasn't super nice to her, but they gave her a free pass on everything that mattered and treated her like a queen until November of 2007 or so.
McCain has always been their darling though. It's disgusting.
July 4, 2008 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, actually they were extremely unfair to hillary. Dowd dedicated 28 of 44 columns since January to beating her up. Mathews/Olberman and Russert were extremely hard on her. The rest of the punditocracy followed suit. Obama got a major pass during the primaries, and now many of us democrats are stuck holding the bag with an unvetted nominee.
July 4, 2008 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you honestly think Hillary was vetted in any way what-so-ever? Like I said, they weren't super nice to her but they gave her a total pass on everything that mattered. She was never second guessed, she was never seriously questioned about anything and the only scandal she had to endure was Bosnia-gate, as opposed to Obama who had to deal with Wright, patriotism, flag pins, bitter voters and a whole host of other completely ridiculous "scandals" that have nothing to do with anything. The media was more harsh on Obama than Clinton, they may have been nicer to him, but they were certainly more tough on him than her.
July 5, 2008 12:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
the coverage of all those "scandals" was all only on fox, and then on msnbc and msm outlets it was about how ridiculous the coverage was and how obama shouldn't be subjected to it. olberman, stephanie miller, randy rhodes, mathews, russert, dowd, brian williams etc were effectively arms of his campaign.
You say hillary wasn't challenged on anything that mattered, but then you compare to obama and a bunch of crap that doesn't matter, lapel pins etc. That is similar to ripping hillary for things like her cleavage and her laugh. only difference is, she didn't have entire news networks supporting her to say how stupid it was. what they should have challenged him on was that he voted for all the war funding despite "having the judgment to be against it" and how in 2004 he said he could be for kerry b/c he wasn't sure how he would have voted had he been in the senate. It's just ridiculous. He represents an idea that people like apparently with nothing whatsoever to back it up.
Plus, now on top of it all, he's proving to be uncommitted to all these idealistic positions he on which he won the nomination. Like i said, it's really cynical politics at its worst since he pretended to be something he clearly isn't.
July 5, 2008 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you can't see the difference between some jackasses making fun if the way she laughs for a couple of days versus constant questioning of his patriotism and the underlining racial bias that was exhibited far too frequently then I don't believe you are even worth wasting my time on.
This is a man who is putting his very life on the line day in and day out, perhaps more than any other candidate has had to worry about in recent history, shouldn't have been subjected to any of that which only fed the misguided belief that he is some covert Muslim trying to take over from the inside in the minds of certain people, trust me, I am living in the south right know; I know some of these people.
July 6, 2008 1:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
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