Media Matters

I have a nasty habit of obsessively watching political news and commentary. Beyond the obvious side-effects of being a boring party-goer or the source of eye-rolling, I'm convinced 24-hour news cycle makes us all a little more petty and unreasonably outraged.

My first post on this blog was about how upset I was about the never-ending focus of mass media on celebrity news. Such sensationalism has lately leaked its way into the political news arena, especially in a presidential election year. But, with the 24-hour news cycle, nothing escapes exaggeration. I know even colonial-era papers were vicious, but this is ridiculous.

Just one example is the enormous amount of time pundits spent on which one of three U.S. Senators / Millionaires running for President was "elitist." One comment about bitterness turned into a 2-week marathon of opinion and general droning-on. They even drone on about how long the networks have... well, droned on. "This story has now lasted three news-cycles!!" they report.

Sometimes I long for the days when people waited for the newspaper delivery to get their news.

Pundits and talking-heads obviously contribute when they bring knowledgeable and well-reasoned information to the subject. I love that kind of analysis. But, when networks have 24-hours of programming to fill, not everyone given a forum for opinion should necessarily be heard. There are entirely too many "experts" eating up too many "segments" to allow for focused analysis.

When that trend is married to the insect-level attention spans encouraged by those very networks, context of any potential controversy splats into the speeding windshield of mass media.

The sound-bite nature of news forces candidates or other news-makers to resort to sound-bite defenses to sound-bite attacks -- effectively stripping our political discourse of substance and making headlines over trifles. That may work for viewers who pay attention until the next commercial break, but for those of us political junkies who live and die with elections, it's madness.

An example: Barack Obama responded to the "bitter" backlash immediately, explained the context, expressed regret that it wasn't more clearly delivered and moved on. The story, however, did not. After being pummelled for being an "elitist," Obama finally stemmed the tide by resorting to a sound-bite retort. By responding that Hillary Clinton was "talking like she is Annie Oakley," he received the kind of smirky-newscaster-introductions to reports of his words necessary to counter the smirky-newscaster-introductions to reports of Clinton's attacks.

"Today, Barack Obama slammed Hillary Clinton by accusing her of 'talking like she is Annie Oakley and packing a six-shooter..." (Insert smirk).

It's junk because it's just a game of "gotcha." It's also petty and irrelevant to the presidential debate. Heck, it's downright demeaning to the presidential debate. An honest explanation should have been enough, but only a zinger changed the topic.

I was a member of the media once upon a time. One of my degrees was in journalism. I understand how difficult that job can be and how frustrating it can be to write with authority on a new subject. The problem, however, is less a product of poor journalism than of over-saturation. I also understand the problem of filling a minimum space.

After a certain point, any media pays a price of quality to achieve quantity.

My point is simply to encourage anyone -- voters, interested observers or anyone else -- to cut through the trash and look at the topic in question with your own common sense. Ask yourself whether something of substance lies buried under the zingers, one-liners and snippets.

Like, for example, whether a charge of "elitism" or any other trumped-up accusation even matters. After all, it takes an "elite-minded" person to believe he or she is the most qualified out of 300 million Americans to lead this nation.