I watch 30 minutes of The Today Show and draw a bunch of conclusions about the entire media establishment
For a variety of reasons as boring as they are convoluted, I couldn't listen to my usual NPR while getting ready this morning. Instead, I flipped on the Today show for some background noise. Now, a short disclaimer - I haven't watched network news in...oh, probably five years. Aside from America's Next Top Model and my beloved Anthony Bourdain Show, most of my contact with the outside world comes from public radio, the New York Times, and blogs. Yes, yes, I'm a screaming, bloody-hearted liberal. Sue me. Anyway, here was the news lineup this morning: could YOU handle it?
TOP STORY: To Today's credit, they did actually mention the whole New York Times- banking surveilance thing. Rather than provide any analysis (which I'm not going to give either, suckers. That's what the Kos is for), they drag out Tim Russert, who says something to the effect of:
"Yeah, it's the job of the press to watch the administration and alert the public when they overstep the bounds of the law. Yeah, the press... oh, dude - that us! Damn, son, that's my bad."
That's it. No mention of the fact that Bush, Cheney, and Snow were out in force, all simultaneously shooting disgrace rays at the 'liberal' media. No mention of how congress was briefed on the program only after it became clear that the media was going to publicize it. Should we place this story in context and mention that this is only one more eggregious breach of privacy by an administration that has raised government snooping to a high art? Certainement non! We've got more important things to talk about, like...
J.K. ROWLINGS IS GOING TO KILL OFF TWO CHARACTERS IN HER NEXT BOOK AND ONE OF THEM MIGHT BE HARRY OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!
...becauses the potential death of a fictional character in a book that might be released this year warrants intensive media scrutiny.
At this point, I think I was bumped back to the local affiliate. Just in case you were wondering, the top story in NorCal this morning was...
THREE MILLION DOLLAR SCRATCH-OFF LOTTERY TICKETS! YOU COULD WIN! RIGHT NOW!
...at which point the talking heads spent the next five minutes scratching off tickets and joking about walking off camera when they won.
If this is the average American's exposure to current events, it's no surprise that people aren't outraged. How could they know? As for the media, it reminds me of a girl that I met while interviewing for graduate schools. She was working for a business that artifically inseminated poultry. I shit you not - she jerked off chickens for a living. But she said that even though it was a disgusting job, and even though your average chicken masturbator doesn't get a lot of credit, and in spite of the fact she went home every night tired and splattered with bird semen, she could go to sleep knowing that this was a service people needed, and that she'd done her job well. It seems to me that this is what televsion needs: less Harry Potter, more chicken jizz. How do they sleep at night?
TOP STORY: To Today's credit, they did actually mention the whole New York Times- banking surveilance thing. Rather than provide any analysis (which I'm not going to give either, suckers. That's what the Kos is for), they drag out Tim Russert, who says something to the effect of:
"Yeah, it's the job of the press to watch the administration and alert the public when they overstep the bounds of the law. Yeah, the press... oh, dude - that us! Damn, son, that's my bad."
That's it. No mention of the fact that Bush, Cheney, and Snow were out in force, all simultaneously shooting disgrace rays at the 'liberal' media. No mention of how congress was briefed on the program only after it became clear that the media was going to publicize it. Should we place this story in context and mention that this is only one more eggregious breach of privacy by an administration that has raised government snooping to a high art? Certainement non! We've got more important things to talk about, like...
J.K. ROWLINGS IS GOING TO KILL OFF TWO CHARACTERS IN HER NEXT BOOK AND ONE OF THEM MIGHT BE HARRY OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!
...becauses the potential death of a fictional character in a book that might be released this year warrants intensive media scrutiny.
At this point, I think I was bumped back to the local affiliate. Just in case you were wondering, the top story in NorCal this morning was...
THREE MILLION DOLLAR SCRATCH-OFF LOTTERY TICKETS! YOU COULD WIN! RIGHT NOW!
...at which point the talking heads spent the next five minutes scratching off tickets and joking about walking off camera when they won.
If this is the average American's exposure to current events, it's no surprise that people aren't outraged. How could they know? As for the media, it reminds me of a girl that I met while interviewing for graduate schools. She was working for a business that artifically inseminated poultry. I shit you not - she jerked off chickens for a living. But she said that even though it was a disgusting job, and even though your average chicken masturbator doesn't get a lot of credit, and in spite of the fact she went home every night tired and splattered with bird semen, she could go to sleep knowing that this was a service people needed, and that she'd done her job well. It seems to me that this is what televsion needs: less Harry Potter, more chicken jizz. How do they sleep at night?
posted by La Blonde Parisienne at 11:51 AM
1 Comments:
Although I'm a Potter fan (blame my daughter), I agree with your post. However, the saddest thing is...us lazy Americans want 30-second blurbs about actual news and happenings and 20-minute segments on who made the biggest peanut butter sculpture. I would agree, that, all blood, guts, war, stealing, other bad stuff all the time is just plain depressing. But, do we really need to watch talking heads pretend to have fun? Nope!
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