Herb Strentz: Chris Matthews and CBS Made Me Run, Screaming
Posted at 9:10 pm, June 30th, 2008
Here are four lunacies the news media tried to foist off on me recently, four of many, I fear.
1. A local television station was bursting with pride because one of its employees had donated 77 gallons of blood last year to the Blood Center of Iowa. In addition to the breathless on-air report, the website of WHO-TV even crowed, “He donated 77 gallons, not pints.”
2. In reporting on the women’s shot put results from the Olympic trials, the agate in the Des Moines Register said the winning distance was 213 feet, 11 inches.
3. Over the weekend, Chris Matthews asked a panel of banal babblers, which will Americans choose, “change or security”?
4. On the CBS evening news Monday night (June 30), viewers were told that the pressing issues in the presidential campaign were Sen. Barrack Obama’s patriotism and Sen. John McCain’s military service record.
I weary of running screaming from our living room. It’s not easy on my wife, Joan, either. But is this what we have come to expect and accept from the news media? Are these the fruits of the First Amendment envisioned by James Madison?
Okay, so a few phone calls, and WHO-TV changed its Web site to report that the employee last year reached the 77-gallon level in blood donation, not that he had been wrung dry by vampires in one year.
And the agate shot put result — I guess the distances were for the discus — is silly on the face of it.
But the folly of political news coverage shows no signs of abating. Isn’t anyone thinking out there? How could “Change” and “Security” be viewed as mutually exclusive? What is meant by “Change” — following the Constitution? What is meant by “Security” — not being under government surveillance?
And what a hoot to suggest that patriotism and military service are major issues in a Presidential campaign — when just about any thinking person could tick off 100 or more salient issues.
This is what we have come to: the hope that, at best, news coverage will be irrelevant to the Presidential campaign. Not exactly what Madison, Thomas Jefferson and others envisioned, but apparently it is what the free press has foisted upon us.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:39 pm |
Professor Strentz – It seems Professor McLuhan is still correct, we’re not a global village – we are now the global theater. We are not supposed to see the message but instead, admire the medium and how, artfully, it fills the space. Instead of screaming, try throwing some thrift shop dish ware at the television. Please wear shoes though.
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:46 am |
Hi fellow Nieman blogger.
Good piece and great reasoning but I am afraid that –with help from the moribund media–patriotism and military service are issues in this campaign. No one should forget the win by Swiftboaters in 2004. Good candidates were defeated when they opposed Vietnam, that 10 year quagmire; triple amputee Max Cleland lost his Senate bit when he, of all people, was tagged soft on terror for being against Iraq. Blind allegiance to ” patriotism” has been a feature in American politics since Eugene Debs got 10 years in prison for printing an anti-World War I article. [check my blog today "Say It Ain't So, O" for some of this.]
Anyway, you show good judgment in running screaming from Chris and his yapping guests.