Reply #4: You Want Lies With That? Just an Average Week in Bush’s America [View All]

[dzika]

March 10, 2005

You Want Lies With That? Just an Average Week in Bush’s America, Protections for the Rich, Police States for the Poor and McMedia for All

By Anthony Wade

...
Lastly, in Bush’s America, the news is processed, not reported. This past week saw the return of the poster child of the Bush media, Jeff “I can’t pronounce Jim” Gannon. The professional gay hooker-turned-faux journalist has gone back online, begging for donations to his cause and lying with impunity. His irrelevance has been well established but he is truly representative of the superciliousness Bush treats all media with. From day one of this administration, the press was punished for asking tough questions and rewarded for asking fluff. What we have seen in latter-day America is the packaging of news, the framing of news, and the creation of news. The GOP has a massive news operation. When there is a need to push a particular talking point, let’s say the social security scam, the GOP noise machine gets in gear. First you will hear on the talk radio circuit how bold Bush is for his vision. Rush Limbaugh will bemoan the lefty democrats who would stand by and do nothing while Bush at least wants to try and let younger wage earners “invest.” Mind you, the facts in the talking points are skewed and often inaccurate, but that does not stop the assault on your opinions. Soon the machine starts up at night during the cable news barrage. Sean Hannity and Joe Scarborough will pontificate about this scam, using the exact same talking points as their radio counterparts. Chris Matthews will have a stacked panel where GOP shills are there to sell you on privatization and the moderates are there to have a fair debate. The coup de grace is delivered in the White House press pool the next day when a GOP plant asks a completely rhetorical question, entirely supporting the same talking points the machine has already hammered home, to the president or his representative, for the sole purpose of finalizing the talking points and having the print press report on it is if it were fact.

Make no mistake about it; we live in an era of packaged media. News is created, weighted and put into a cardboard carton for us to swallow at dinner time. It is McMedia for all. It is representative of all that is inherently lazy about us as Americans. It is what makes us sit back and not care that the reasons we went to war, were wrong. When Katie Couric shouting “Navy seals rock!” passes for investigative journalism, we are headed for deep trouble. When Jim Guckert can lie about who he is, who he works for, and pretend to be a journalist, and then be celebrated for it, we are in the age of McMedia. The arrogance of this administration filters down to folks like Jeff/Jim who claim that somehow the “gay card” is being played on him. Mind you, this is a man who lied in his interview with Wolf Blitzer about the “gay-sounding” websites he paid for. When he was exposed, it turned out that he had over 40 naked pictures of himself online and was still selling his sexual services as a gay hooker but somehow someone else is playing the gay card on him?

No, Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert is simply a microcosm of the McMedia this administration is selling you every night. They just assume you will be too lazy to check the facts. Even if the truth comes out one day, Bush has proven that he can make the ends justify the means and have everyone swallow it. Every night there is another whopper for you to buy. If Bush gets in real trouble with your testy public opinion, he can just send out an emissary onto Fox News, call it an “exclusive” and be granted unfettered minutes to finalize the sale to you, under the guise of journalism. The sad part is that we keep coming back for it. Just like when we know that Big Mac is no good for us, but we order it anyway for lunch.

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