I have commented on the press in earlier blogs. Beyond the limits of any acceptable principle, MSNBC has gone so far off the scale as to make their attempt at full coverage ludicrous. Turning on the tv, there in all his splendor was Tom Delay. Tom Delay, the disgraced Texas congressmen, who personally redefined usury who made a mockery of the one man one vote rule. There he was giving his opinion on the fiscal fallout and the activity of the presidential candidates. One cannot find a more disgraced and unethical person who used his office as his personal trough to garner capital slop from any source. He and his buddy, Jack Abramoff, demonstrated what the Reagan revolution was really about. Double talking snake oil salesman the likes of Delay should stay under whatever rock they hid under.
Who is making the decision to get a disgraced politician to comment on anything save their own crimes? Is the pool of talking heads so diminished as to cause network executives to lift up stones in search of someone, anyone? Is there no moral or ethical standard applied to those allowed to get on the air? Lewis Carroll is the only one who could explain the state of tv journalism. Perhaps some executive might consider having someone like Ted Bundy comment on blind dating.
We are awash in pundits who pontificates so they can glow in the lime light and garner another fifteen minutes of fame. We are faced with the depressing future of seeing one after another of these so called authorities explaining events to us. Where are the real grungy reporters who don’t sleep and don’t shave as they follow every lead to get at the truth? We need more reporters like Dana Priest and Anne Hull to replace these made up models who read the first paragraph of a paper so they can “report” on the topic they are assigned. I don’t think any of these supposed reporters ever break a story. They get exclusives which is to say they get another vapid interview form another supposed expert resulting in a report with the depth of a rain puddle. What we don't need is to put the camera on another has been. I would bet that someone does all the research and these so called tv reporters only get to babble about it. These presentations are so contrived animated characters could do the job. Schabb is doing it with his commercials. Why not bring it to these cable news programs? Just think of all the money the bean counters could save on hair spray and pancake make-up.
We are told we are living through a most serious time politically, financially, and globally. We have a crisis in confidence in our president. We suspect the motives of the folks in Congress. At times, it would appear that the future of the human race hangs in the balance. Madmen, fanatics, idiots, demagogues, thieves, dictators, all are pushing us and this planet into a spiral of destruction. Given all that, it is time to get rid of this tabloid mentality in the news. It is time for the press to take on the responsibility that the founding fathers placed with them. We don’t need another pretty face to tell us what we already know. We need dedicated men and women to take their credentials and get to the bottom of all this craziness. Please no more stars, no more personalities, no more superficial analysts who will read a paragraph or two and then bore us with their take on it. And for god sakes, will someone wipe the smile of their faces? Giddiness has it place and that it is in preschool. Mostly, we need to charge the offices where decisions are being made on these twenty-four seven news channels and throw the executives out. They have single handedly reduced the venerable fourth estate to a joke!
These are serious times and Ken and Barbie dolls or loud mouth ex-political operatives are not what we need. We need journalists who are dedicated to the ideas of a free press. We don’t need would be stars who travel about in chauffeured cars looking for some hack to fill their allotted five minutes of time. We need to get back to the days when reporting was reporting. Currently, our tv news is nothing but a playground for a collection of pundits who are more impressed with their own persona than the dire events we are facing. Freedom of the press is a serious responsibility. I am sure the framers of the constitution didn’t carve this principle into our constitution so the network can parade these clowns in front of us.
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