But, for the moment, and from a distance, I will tell you what this looks as much to me as it does to anything else.
It looks like Columbine.That portion of the morning I didn't spend vacuuming water in my basement was spent open-mouthed, watching Charley "Journamalism" Rose attempt, repeatedly, to get the message across to a skeptical nation that the two Boston bombing suspects were foreigners. Which, of course, leads to the inescapable conclusion that the bombing was part of a global anti-American terror campaign.
Further proof, where none was actually needed, was the incredible military precision of the attacks, the execution of MIT security officer Sean Collier, and the running gun battle with police, all indicative of some no doubt foreign training.
Except for, y'know, the fact that they were caught on every security camera in the Back Bay, were still in Boston three days later, made a break for it once their pictures were plastered all over creation, and tried to rob a 7-11 and/or an ATM for some getaway cash. I believe we can rule out any Mossad connections at this point.
For relief I switched over to NBC, and counted how many times Richard Engle could say "possible al-Qaeda affiliate" in sixty seconds.
ITEM Two:
I'd like to point out that, given the performance of cable teevee news this week, I'd like an offer of proof about that guy's really being their uncle.A-fucking-men. Everytime these guys go wall-to-wall I hope to find some evidence of a slight improvement. Some tiny flicker of evidence that they've tried to learn from what is charitably described as past mistakes. Some small sense that, when everyone's covering the same story, a "scoop" is much less important than accuracy. Maybe a hint that national reporters have learned the difference between being arrested and being taken into custody.
And, y'know, not only am I disappointed every single time. It fucking just gets worse. Television news is the mutant rainforest amphibian of our national dialogue.
4 comments:
Our constitutionally guaranteed Free Press hasn't existed for a couple of decades, maybe longer. But luckily we can still buy lots of guns.
Television news is the mutant rainforest amphibian of our national dialogue.
That's an insult to mutant rainforest amphibians everywhere.
Yeah, "Columbine, with dumb-luckier perps" seems about right. The same thought occured to me a few hours ago, and you're the second blogger I've seen remark on the resemblance. (The other being Charlie Pierce.)
I can't imagine 24-hour news networks (and they're the drivers of all news coverage) behaving any differently. You have a big, Huge, STUPENDOUS story ... but you don't, Won't, CAN'T have anything to report about it in a constant stream of real time. You can't cut away from this mega-story, because -- what if something happens? -- what if somebody turns to your station and sees you covering something other than the mega-story? -- so you just hang there with your dumb fucking face out, running your dumb fucking mouth until you inevitably blurt out something stupid. It is a stupidity bomb that cannot be defused. It can, however, be safely ignored.
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