Big Media Hits and Misses of the Week From Hot Dog Eating Contests to How Republicans ...

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http://www.alternet.org/media/big-media-hits-and-misses-week-red-white-and-blue-edition

The Big Media Hits and Misses of the Week--From Hot Dog Eating Contests to How the Republicans are Still Destroying the Country

This week brought out the best and wurst in our media -- from a columnist at the Washington Post laying bare how badly the Republicans are destroying the country to the press's love affair with hot dog eating contests to its love affair with international high-tech drone warfare.

BY THE DAWN’S EARLY LIGHT

Once in a while, even The New York Times must seek a “happy story” in the nation’s capital. Obstructionist Republicans in Washington solely to stymie Democrats present a challenge. The Times rose to it with a frontpage story on the Burpee togetherness fostered by Oklahoma Republican Markwayne Mullins’ bipartisan workout regime. Mullins, an Oklahoma plumber, fanatically opposes government assistance, but his plumbing business took $370,00 from Obama stimulus act funds in 2009. He now heads up bi-partisan morning sweat-fests for members of Congress.

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THE FRUITED PLAIN!

Competitive eaters bellied up to the table at Nathan’s on Coney Island on July 4 and tried to beat last year’s Hot Dog eating record, set by Joey Chestnut, who consumed 69 dogs in 10 minutes. This amount of food means: 20,010 calories, as much as a man would eat in a week, or 34.5 feet of hot dog, enough, the New York Post put it, to wrap a belt around what Rush Limbaugh is calling the Statue of Immigration – that is, Liberty.

***SNIP

THROUGH THE PERILOUS NIGHT

On Thursday, the Labor Department announced the economy added 211,000 jobs in May. Good news for the nation – and the President – but bad news for the playa-haters at Fox. Predictably, the network found a way to make good news look bad. “That is far short of what is needed to keep up with population growth and genuinely reduce unemployment,” opined Fox commentator Peter Morici in advance of the report. Two hours after the report was released, Fox’s homepage featured a hunting cheerleader, a crying Japanese politician, and, buried in a second line in the news feed: “Wall Street hits 17k on on “strong jobs data”

BOMBS BURSTING IN AIR

Most of the media panted about the news that the demoniacs of Al Qaeda in Yemen have invented a new undetectable airplane bomb. The season of fireworks is a good time to give some thought to American bombs. With hand held i-phone bombs now able to vaporize commercial jets, we remain the political equivalent of Gulliver, stymied by the Lilliputians. The nation that brought the world Little Boy and Fat Man pumps billions into iffy nuclear weapon defense, as detailed here by the LA Times.