News You Can Lose

[Joanne98]

Brace yourselves. The real presidential campaign — the kind the news media have forced us to get used to — has begun, with the twin uproars over remarks by Geraldine Ferraro and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as the inaugural moments. The way the talking heads on CNN and Fox flogged these stories made you want to outlaw 24-hour cable news. And it makes you cringe in anticipation of what’s to come.

Aren’t most of us desperate for a different kind of political coverage? Aren’t we really sick of the “horse race coverage,” the emphasis on the symbolic, superficial and idiotic?

Remember how Dubya got kid-glove treatment during the 2000 debates and campaign coverage while the press ridiculed Al Gore — who is a hundred times smarter and more principled — for allegedly claiming to have invented the Internet? Well, here we go again.

John McCain, who so far has been getting off scot-free, has committed serial gaffes of substance, in which he confuses Sunnis and Shiites and claims that al Qaeda (Sunnis) are going to Iran (predominantly Shiite) to “retool.” He should be hooted off the national stage for this. But no.

The news media, and especially the cable channels, have honed their campaign coverage routines in conjunction with the Lee Atwater-Karl Rove dirty tricks mode of politics, in which easy, negative symbols — Willie Horton, anyone? — and slurs against candidates’ strengths become instantly newsworthy, easy and cheap to cover, and thus eclipse stories about actual policy debates or events.

But just as I thought it would be a real victory for democracy if beneficent space aliens came down and eradicated CNN and Fox with laser rays, I logged onto YouTube, which has plenty of anti-Wright videos and commentary. Nonetheless, a person identifying him- or herself as Trinity, a 46-year-old “unapologetic black Christian,” posted the full video of Wright’s sermon, emphasizing what the cable channels failed to show. As of this writing, the video had nearly 475,000 views and elicited more than 10,000 comments.

Viewers expressed outrage that Fox, in particular, took Wright’s remarks out of context. Comments included “Fox News should be sued,” “Sean Hannity should be fired” (we can all dream), and “These media whores are DESPICABLE.” To his credit, CNN’s Anderson Cooper finally decided to watch the whole speech and posted a much more detailed and fair analysis — on his blog.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3607/news_you_can_lose/

[Beregond2]

1. The trouble

with that Sunni/Shiite gaffe is, most Americans will think: "Hell, I can't tell them apart either." Stupidity in a candidate is clearly to problem to stupid voters.