Media and reaching for straws

October 30th, 2008 • 1 comment chatter
Tags: politics

My girlfriend sent me the following video, it’s apparently “controversial”: WPTV controversial interview with Joe Biden. I suggest you watch it and see how much the media not only fails to inform its watchers but it fails itself in actual journalism.

This woman is a paid journalist but she’s nothing more than a talking head. All that Joe Biden is asked is regurgitated fallacies and strawman attacks on candidate Obama. He puts everything to her in straight, common language and there’s nothing ambiguous about what he says. She asks if Joe Biden if he is embarrassed by Obama’s past ties to ACORN. Why would he be embarrassed? He plainly tells her to get her facts straight and to “get real”. The ACORN issue is a dead issue but people keep bringing it up because they have nothing else to talk about now that the Bill Ayers “link” has been plainly debunked. If I was Biden, I would’ve said I was embarrassed to be asking such blatantly dumb questions in such serious tone and in a serious interview. I hope she learns how to interview people some day. You can tell this news anchor is simply reading her cards, regardless of what Biden is actually going to say. She’s not even phased one bit when he plainly asks her “Are you joking? Is this a joke? Is this a real question?” She doesn’t even blink, she either fully believes the drivel coming out of her mouth or she’s so well paid she doesn’t care what she says. This is journalism today. It’s not about journalistic integrity and gathering facts, it’s about spitballing quips, one-liners, quotes, and muckraking. If this is how “journalists” are going to continue to inform America, maybe we should let people like TMZ and Perez Hilton headline CNN and MSNBC. They never talk about anything relevant or important but at least it’s true. That’s more than nearly any newscaster can say about their own broadcasts today.

This isn’t in the video but now the RNC and McCain/Palin are bringing up a gentleman called Rashid Khalidi who Obama worked with at some point in the past, albeit very little. This is the newest strawman to be set up because what they’re hoping for is that because Khalidi is a Palestinian and has an Arabic name, people will assume he’s got to be a terrorist. or otherwise, some kind of radical. But they’re not talking about McCain’s long standing relationship with both Khalidi and the groups they’ve both been a part of in the past — not to mention that McCain was a part of a group that awarded Khalidi’s group $500,000. So this evil strawman they’ve set up to “pal around” with Barack has in fact had more face time with McCain than Barack ever has. See a pattern here? More grasping at straws. They’re desperate and they know it. The McCain/Palin race to lose is running out of steam, not because Barack may be a better orator (which he is, IMO), or because he’s preaching a platform that at least sounds like it’s for Americans and not big corporations (which he is), or because he’s playing the “race card” (which I haven’t seen him do). They’re losing because they don’t have anything to actually stand for or even say. I’ve been watching both McCain and Palin give speeches recently and I’ve heard less about what they’re going to do differently than our current administration and more about Obama’s past. Last I checked, America’s about Americans and their issues and ideals, not the past of one man and his paper-thin links to “radicals” and “terrorists” (Tom Delay kept spouting on Hardball how much of a “radical” Obama is. I guess anything is radical sounding when it’s different). I’ve been watching Obama talk as well and thankfully, he’s talking about issues and not his opponent. Even the people who’ve been speaking for him — Biden, the Clintons, etc — are busy talking about America and the issues, not McCain or Palin. There’s a pattern here and it’s deliberate. America wants to know where Obama stands and that’s what he’s giving them.

I’m not here to stump for Obama, I’m simply sick and tired of the pathetic job journalists are doing at their own jobs. People of my generation and the one after me want to hear about how people are going to change things and make them better for everyone, we don’t care at all about what kind of shoes John McCain wears (but the media does) or what kind of crazy crap Barack Obama’s former pastor says (but the media does). We want to know what good either candidate is going to do for us and others. So far, I see one candidate doing exactly that and it’s not McCain.

Also, does anyone else thoroughly enjoy listening to Keith Olbermann simply rip Palin to shreds every time she opens her mouth? I don’t enjoy (or watch) any pundit but Olbermann simply for his rants on this woman, he puts it all out on the table and isn’t worried about what he says. That’s how all of these political pundits need to be.