August 28, 2006

We have way too many idiots

This headline: Prosecutors Drop Case in Ramsey Slaying just about drove me up the wall. And our media? Idiots.

I admit, when a friend told me that they had a possible lead in the Ramsey case, I was mildly intrigued. I remembered how sure I was that the parents were involved--that any parents who would put their tiny child in beauty pageants like that weren't quite right. I thought, like so many, that maybe we had jumped the gun.

Then, like everyone else, I was inundated with the story. Yeah, yeah, war in Lebanon; Iran making nukes; our President doing something stupid--all that stuff was shunted aside to watch this nut job fly back from Thailand. Even to the point that we heard details on his meal and drink preferences. Idiots.

Once I heard a little about the case, it became clear to me that if that was all the prosecutors had, they were in trouble. Always tricky when your witness has the reliability of a child molester. Reminds me of Dobson using Ted Bundy to justify that porn made him kill women.

But the media........ I have an idea. It is unworkable from the start, but here is what I would do as King. A bi-partisan committee of smart people (rules out Bush administration, I know, but I am willing to live with it) takes a look at the last few years of media coverage. Any meaningful discussions about healthcare and tax reform gets plusses--Tom Cruise mentions and anything related to Paris Hilton are clear minuses.

Panel adds them up and goes to the businesses AND "reporters" and gives them the business. For most of the media, King Streak would recommend banning from news programs. You can moderate celebrity stories all you want--entertainment and fake news is all yours--but no real stories. Banned, as it were, from even discussing Iraq, politics, or the environment. Those stories would be given to real smart people who write for the New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly and occasionally are on the air.

Now, if I can just figure out how to make myself King.....

8 comments:

Writer said...

Streak,

You continue to amaze me. A liberal like yourself criticizing the media? Don't you see how ironic that is to me and my conservative friends who complain about the liberal media?

Oh well, I can always listen to Rush Limbaugh for a good laugh.

Thanks for the chuckle. I remember you said that liberals don't giggle. Do they chuckle?

Have a great day,

Les

Streak said...

Les, that is just because you and your conservative friends have bought the "lie" of the liberal media. It isn't liberal--probably not conservative. Just stupid. Well, unless you consider how the media laid down for Bush's call for war. Was that conservative or stupid?

But watch cnn's Glenn Beck, or Lou Dobbs, or MSNBC's Tim Russert, Joe Scarborough, or anything on Fox and remind me again of the liberals in media? Outside Jon Stewart and Keith Olbermann, you are better off looking for the yeti.

Streak said...

Oh, and liberals do chuckly. Wry chuckles and thoughtful laughs.

ANewAnglican@gmail.com said...

Are you saying that Dobson killed women?

Streak said...

Dammit.

That's what I get for writing too quickly.

Wasp Jerky said...

The media is only as liberal as the conservative corporations that own it.

Writer said...

Streak,

Finally! Common ground! I agree with you about the media being stupid.

I'm glad you can chuckle. It seems so right.

Many regards,

Les

Anonymous said...

Let's not confuse media criticism with acceptance of the conservative talking point about the "liberal media." This is a 'with us or against us' view in that if one disagrees with the media, one must logically agree with rightist critiques.

For example, I might cry foul over the narrow camera angles used in the coverage of Bush's recent trip to New Orleans. He stood before reconstructed homes and proudly proclaimed some version of Mission Accomplished/Heckuva Job/etc while just outside of the shot, there was hurricane debris that had yet to be removed. Is this failure to look behind the carefully constructed facade for this tightly scripted event evidence of the "liberal media?"

Wasp Jerky makes an important point a out corporate ownership of the major media outlets. It's important to recognize that during the last decade or so, the mass media is becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few corporations. I tend to think that corporations are unconcerned with political ideology except as it might build or hinder the bottom line.