Where Do They Get These People?

Like so many others before me, I bitch about the media a lot. I am mystified as to how the people who are supposed to be covering the news are chosen. Most of the cable news readers seem to be attractive people, good readers, have nice capped teeth and terrific hair. Few offer much more.

When you look back at the history of American journalism, you see Woodward and Bernstein breaking the Watergate Scandal, The Boston Globe and the Catholic priest mess, the New York Times and the Pentagon Papers, just to name a few from the last 40years. There has been quality investigative reporting by local newspapers uncovering dangers to citizens' health, welfare and tax dollars. The press has been a positive force in American life that keeps government, business and people honest.

I've been doing my family's genealogy for the past 10 years or so. This type of research requires reading old newspapers looking for birth, death and marriage notices. In the course of this browsing, I've looked at newspapers going back 165 years in this country. The striking thing is that they actually reported real news. To be fair, they also reported lots of sensational stories about wives who drank acid to commit suicide, murders and mayhem in the streets. However, there was in-depth coverage of real stories about government, full texts of laws that had been enacted, stories on tariffs, legislative wrongdoing, what local governments were doing day-to-day. Editorials came with the political sympathies of the newspaper written there for all to read. None of this Mickey Mouse "balance" on the editorial page. If you didn't like the views of the management, then find another paper.

Since few subscribe to the newspaper anymore, we can only compare the in-depth coverage by yesterday's newspapers with today's cable outlets. The comparison is not one that should comfort anyone who actually wants to know what's going on in this country.

Let's see....there's the car chase on a California freeway. There's the lost child or the horrendous family murder or bus/train wreck. There's news about some Hollywood person that most of us couldn't name under penalty of death. Presently, this is followed by snippets from the various presidential and vice-presidential candidates on the road. The blurb chosen is almost always a personal attack on an opponent. This is moved to the lead story if it's really a new and truly nasty accusation.

Let's face it, though. When have you heard one of these nicely coiffed, surgically enhanced men and women give you the latest plan for the economy by either candidate? How about an update on a new educational policy? Do you think that what the candidates are saying about the Middle East and diplomacy could be helpful before you vote in three weeks? Well, you're not going to get that on CNN Headline News, MSNBC, or Fox, that' for sure.

The reasons for this are two-fold. First, reporters at these outlets would need to do some actual investigative work in order to procure the real stories. It can't just be Candy Crowley getting off the bus and spouting the McCain talking point of the day. It would mean doing some fact-checking to see if that talking point had merit. It would mean not reporting some Drudge Report rumor as truth, then supporting it with repeats of the same rumor picked up by more internet sights. Today's reporters seem too busy being mini-celebrities to go out and do any leg-work. Better to rely on some campaign insider with an agenda.

The second reason we get this type of desultory news coverage is that we deserve it.
Yes, indeedy, we do. We can't concentrate long enough to listen to something as boring as someone's foreign policy plan; that could cut into valuable reality-show viewing. This rather large failing is one reason that we are governed so poorly. We didn't ask for better coverage as W dismantled constitutional protections to privacy. Most of us didn't understand what this adminstration was doing...and didn't want to take the time to find out. The same goes for the sinkhole that we call the War in Iraq. No disturbing pictures of dead American soldiers or Iraqi civilians. We went right along with the plan to keep those nasty images out of sight.

So, the cable networks, after what was, undoubtedly, a marathon of focus groups, decided to give us what we want . Instead of knowing what was going on in our country for the past eight years, we've spent a lot of time on Anna Nichole Smith, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Brad and Angelina, John Edward's $400 haircut, whether Hillary is too pushy, inportant topics like these.

We're in a pickle now, but there is a way out. We can insist on better coverage, and complain when we don't get it. Every one of these networks has a website. We can start yelling until we get better coverage, or turn off the set and read. The newspapers and the internet are fine sources for the information we need as citizens. We can stop settling for a bunch of beatiful people reading us "quasi-news" and find the real answers ourselves. Who knows? The cable news stations might come to miss us and start doing the kind of jobs they should have been doing all along.

And That Was The Week That Was

It was a wild and wooly ride, the week that was. It included a financial crisis that it's probably best so few of us understand. There were congressional all-nighters in an attempt to solve in a few days a problem that has been festering for months, possibly years. This was followed by the obligatory blame-game among governmental leaders that, as taxpayers, we pay our good money to hear during and after each crisis. There followed a resolution, of sorts. Finally, came the culmination of a week of political manuevering, The Vice-Presidential Debate.

Let's look at the financial crisis, as much as we would prefer not to. Like John McCain, I don't really understand economics much. I don't even balance the family checkbook, apparently also like McCain. The one thing I've always said about our nation's economy, though, is that most of us would cut back on buying big ticket items for our families if our salaries were cut. So, it seems crazy that we have attempted to cut taxes while waging a major and expensive war. Yet, that is what the Bush Administration chose to do. They cut taxes needed to pay for a war that they estimated would cost us about $80 billion. If the war had actually cost that much, cutting taxes may not have hurt the country. Since the real cost is probably somewhere between half a trillion and a trillion dollars, we'll never be able to calculate what effect a "measly" $80 billion dollar war would have had.
Oh well, easy come, easy go. So taxes were cut by that brilliant MBA that's been running the country for the past 8 years, and expenses for war escalated. In fact, we're looking for more places to wage war and spend money....brilliant stewardship there, George. Heckuva job, Georgie.

So, after hocking our children's futures to pay for mayhem, Washington managed to combine this folly with looking the other way while Congress and this administration allowed every lobbyist in Washington to earn a bonus by finding new ways to rip off the people. Whether on golf vacations, trips to the casinos, evening and weekends spent in luxury, we allowed lobbyists to bribe the people's representatives into giving away any and all protections we had against their greedy clients. This practice is called deregulation. Lobbyists talked legistlators and presidents into relaxing the only protections we had against thievery, and they robbed us blind. No one could have seen that coming, unless of course, he or she had ever read a history book.

If all of this sounds a little strong, it is merely the unvarnished truth. The gravest insult and injury to the American people is that now that these hyenas have stripped our carcasses, so to speak, we are now going to need to help them digest the meal they've made of the economy. We must now rescue them from their own gluttony and vices.

I am one of those who feel that the bailout/rescue is probably necessary...though it shouldn't have been. We have to go through with it because our personal financial futures and the future of the worldwide economy are so intertwined with the fate of the Wall Street thieves and their minions, that we'll all go down together. It shouldn've have been necessary because Wall Street investors assumed much risk to make maximum profit. They got the government to sanction the risks they were taking. Then when their bet didn't work out, they want a bailout. Casinos don't work that way, but it looks as if our government must. Hope it works, because it is the most expensive lesson this country will ever have to learn.

When all was accomplished, we had the spectacle of the finger-pointing. It was fun to watch the Republicans, the stewards of the country's economy low these many years, trying to blame this on poor people in general and an obscure loan program in particular. Hard to believe that could be the only cause of this mess, when you look at the expensive homes from coast-to-coast that sit in foreclosure next to little bungalows. If all the foreclosures were caused by poor people defaulting, we've got some pretty crafty poor folks out there.

Lastly, we were treated to more of The Palin Phenomenon. Pundits, who mere days before, were calling for her resignation are now singing her praises....not because she had a command of, or even an understanding of, major policies. Peggy Noonan, Pat Buchanan and others on the right are so proud of her because she was warm, cuddly and made a connection with the people. So does a warm puppy, but let's not elect one to the vice-presidency under a very sick old man. It certainly doesn't take much to impress the right...they loved Bush. Need I say more?

The Republicans have decided to take the gloves off and go after Obama's character for the next 30 days. I don't blame them at all. They have no programs to get us back on track, so why not make the opponent look like a terrorist or worse?

I'm done with the week that was. The next week doesn't appear to be any more restful...but it couldn't get worse. Could it?