Friday, Lafayette, Indiana

Casual Talk for Public Exposure

Will you allow me to blow off some steam? I will be calling people names who are always calling people names!

Perhaps we need to be patient and allow time for the news media to evolve more fully. Obsessed as they are with the presidential circus, the cable news outlets are drawing in audiences with the traditional tactics of tabloids - shock and awe. It’s drawing rubber necking spectators to look over at a spectacular car crash! The “issues” being covered are of the most inflammatory and divisive type: racial animus, religious orthodoxy and fear mongering.

Viewers who choose to look in on one of these news outlets for some intelligent updates and summaries on the progress and process of the Presidential election are instead inundated with slant, innuendo and juvenile name calling.

As much of a news junkie as I have long been, current television news coverage, especially on the cable outlets, is simply revolting to me. And no network is better than the other - none has the high ground!

From the agonizingly annoying Wolf Blitzer to the arrogant blowhard spinmeister Bill O’Reilly, there is apparently enough of a desperate audience tuning in to these millionaire entertainers for their social edification that they are making money for their networks. Whether it’s the irrelevant liberal gasbag pundits, the stunningly opportunistic Al Sharpton, the bellicose Chris Matthews or the drug addict Rush Limbaugh, the mealy mouth sell out Alan Colmes or relentlessly unreflective Sean Hannity, they are all show business stars masquerading as journalists.

The liberal spin of the major networks and New York Times, the fringe fervor of Fox and its intemperate, myopic talent - well - it’s enough to make anyone hurl and turn immediately to HGTV and the Food Network for composure. Really, beyond curiosity, what is the point of watching the vicious, purposeless provocations of Ann Coulter, the ideologue with no visible conscience?

Watching the shock-jock nerd John Gibson, dressed up like a real newsman, cruelly mock the death of Heath Ledger this week, it takes gall for the Fox pundits to assume the high road on morality, airing on a network whose reputation for sleazy prime time programs is legendary. This is the network that dilettante comedian and newly minted conservative Dennis Miller, in love with his thesaurus, once described as “the Network whose parents are not home.” At least the amoral sewer slug Howard Stern had the decency to disappear into the fog of Satellite radio.

The arrogant New York Times is equally obnoxious as it explains to the elite what is going on “out there” among the rest of us, peering down like an entomologist observing an ant colony. They too should stick to what they do best: reviews plays and operas.

Where is compassion? Where is open discourse? Where is the discussion about health care? Where is the conversation about our status in the world? Where is the civil debate about the best approach to confronting the religious psychotics apparently free to come across our porous borders while we debate the Clinton - Obama race baiting nonsense?

Ugh! Where is the news coverage?

Clearly it’s someplace else! In the meantime cable news is just broadcasting heated bar conversations best kept among personal acquaintances in the privacy of their own relationship.

Is it any wonder that we’ve been electing the venal, the corrupt and the stupid for the past 15 years?

Rosa observes:

It’s so true that the media (an even the candidates at times) have fallen for the sensational opportunity to stir racial and gender issues. I think that having an African-American and a woman as candidates make the subject almost unavoidable, but I agree that there are even more relevant issues to focus on: Iraq, health care (I will never understand why car insurance is mandatory but health isn’t), economy, education, etc. We only have basic cable at home, so we turn to Brian Williams, CSPAN, and the “arrogant New York Times” (electronic version) for news regarding the candidates and their campaigns. We try to watch all the debates, but it’s frustrating that some of them are broadcasted by MSNBC or CNN (we don’t have those channels). Am I over reacting or is this discrimation against the “poor”? :-). Any ways, despite all the negative, I find this political campaigns extremely interesting and entertaining

And Beth adds:

Tell us how you really feel, Dr. Will!

You’re so right. It’s very easy for people to attack without backing up their comments, and the media feeds off of itself. This is only one example of many, but when Ann Coulter made her ridiculous remarks about John Edwards, and people were outraged and talking about it, I asked, “Why are you upset about this? She’s only saying that kind of thing to get attention, and the more you discuss it, the more attention she gets.” That kind of idiotic remark has no place in a reasonable, intelligent society, and my reaction is to dismiss it for the foolishness that it is. I don’t understand why the media has chosen to exploit that kind of behavior instead of ignoring it. Ratings, I suppose. But whatever happened to journalistic ethics?

You rant very eloquently, by the way.