You can't simultaneously mock something and produce it!
Almost any time of day, you can tune the TV to innumerable channels, or flip on the radio in the car to NPR, and you won't have to wait long for some coverage of the 2008 presidential election featuring various talking heads. And you can be assured that at some point in that discussion those very same talking heads will be giggling and smirking about how silly this is that we are "so far away from the election and yet already talking about it all the time. " Ha ha, isn't this silly! They have pundit tsk tsk for how early the campaigning and coverage is starting, as though some nebulous 'other' is forcing it.
Guess what assholes: YOU are the ones talking about it!
That's right, who is to 'blame' for this wall to wall 2008 campaign coverage a year and a half out? Is it the League of Women Voters with their no graphics paper mailing describing the candidates which will arrive in about a year? I don't think so. Is it the candidates? Damn them for going out and doing candidatey things like raising money and talking to people. Lord knows I do my job every day and I have to fight the media off with a stick. Nope, this endless coverage is because of... the people who are providing this endless coverage.
This is elsewhere in our culture too. For instance, I overhear hear people who wear irony t-shirts and ride track cycles making fun of all the 'scenesters' out there now.
But back to journalists and pundits. Here are some things you could talk about and cover if you really don't want to be doing the 2008 campaign so much. The following things took about 5 nanoseconds to pop into my head:
- Fraud and corruption at all levels of government and corporations
- How this country might navigate a more globalized economy
- The challenges posed by climate change
- The myriad consequences of the current wave of illegal immigration
- Almost anything else because there are lots of big interesting issues out there
4 comments:
I agree. But I am interested in what the candidates have to say. I want to hear those stories, just not the mocking, that's the irritating part. Also, was your post simultaneously mocking these stories while producing one?
It's so bad that candidates are already being discounted if they're doing poorly in the polls or haven't raised an obscene amount of money. But it clearly isn't just the fault of the press, since the parties are already holding debates. I'm more ticked off about the coverage of movie stars and murders than I am at the amount of political coverage. It is at least somewhat important. More to the point, the press needs to cover the important issues in depth. Provide some history, some background, and some real analysis to help the idiotic American public make something of the news. Reading back the talking points of vested interests is not real coverage.
In case you missed the Andrew Keen interview on the Colbert Report last night you can watch it here.
The guy is a total ass, believing that unless you are getting paid for something your work doesn't have value. The best part was his last line that "We need professional journalists that responsibly collect the news rather than anonymous bloggers who are often in the pay of corporations..." How does this work again? Sometimes I forget the definition of professional journalist.
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