Much of what we see on the news mirrors what we see
everywhere on television. They're
playing procedural police dramas, home improvement shows and
"reality-based" contests all day on their network.
We will, too.

They're reporting that Obama is a lying, weaselly flip-flopper on their network. We will, too.

And this mirrors American culture in general- a world filled with WalMarts, fast-food and really loud movies with lots of explosions and/or fart jokes.

Ecologist Gordian Orians coined the term "Homogecene" to describe the human-driven trend toward monoculture, toward a landscape where everything looks exactly the same. He was talking about the loss of biological diversity, but we humans have a general lack of tolerance for any kind of real diversity, biological or cultural. Change sucks.

Change is scary. Scary sells, but only if framed as scary. McCain does not represent change. There’s no story there. You and I may see McCain as scary, but that’s scary in the future, like Global Warming. Obama is scary now like Cubans drilling for our oil off Key West.

The Media reports on the race between Obama and McCain as if it were WWF Smack-down because that model fits what they believe their main demographic is (18-35 males). But they also over-report the Obama negatives, because like West Nile virus and a Bird Flu they can play up scary. Scary gets us into a different demographic ballpark. Top this off with a generous helping of Rupert Murdock and Sun Myung Moon who are genuinely trying to drive opinion is a specific direction.

We can’t fight the “McCain as scrappy, maverick underdog” sport metaphors in the press as long as he remains behind in the polls. The press loved him in 2000, because he was a scrappy loser and they’ve been given no immediate reasons to re-frame the mythos.

The only real tack left to us is to make McCain look scarier in the now than Obama and we are obliged to do it in the non-corporate press loudly enough that appears to be homogenous opinion, because the press only reports on that which appears to be monocultural.

Corporate media will not pick up a story just because it’s news. It has to be old news.