The banality of major media
Ben Smith remarks on the banality of pool coverage of Obama's vacation.
On some level that's a tribute to Obama's accessibility. Rather than hiding on a thousand acre ranch behind locked gates, he spends his down time in pubic places -- with the regular people. But as a practical matter for the media, this hardly seems to warrant the expense of sending who knows how many pool reporters to cover the banal details of an ordinary vacation.
Surely one pool reporter could do the job of many, if even that was necessary. We have hundreds of freelance paparazzi who make a living chasing celebrities. They could hire one of those or in the alternate, simply have Obama's team release a daily press release with a photo and a description of their day. It might free up the 'journos' who are lolling around the beach to, I don't know, maybe stalk the CEOs of the companies who are spending our bailout tax dollars. Or maybe they could trail Dick Cheney. It would be good to know what he's up to at any given moment. That would be much more interesting than breathless reports about water parks and idle speculation over whether Obama will be making his home state of Hawaii his vacation destination of choice once he's in office. Furthermore it would afford the Obamas the privacy they deserve for their limited family time.
[More posts daily at The Detroit News.]
Just got my fifth pool report of the day, from the Trib's John McCormick , who reports that Obama is at a friend's house, and that reporters could glimpse "a couple jet skiis moving about in the water" and "a group of people watching from shore."Newsrooms are cutting journalists who might cover real news from the payroll in record numbers all over the country. Yet they have a pool of reporters chasing after the President's elect motorcade and spying on him from behind bushes for a glimpse of him on the beach.
Aside from the devotion to exercise, Obama's seems like a pretty ordinary vacation. Random trips to water parks, old friends, and relatives; no apparent celebrities.
On some level that's a tribute to Obama's accessibility. Rather than hiding on a thousand acre ranch behind locked gates, he spends his down time in pubic places -- with the regular people. But as a practical matter for the media, this hardly seems to warrant the expense of sending who knows how many pool reporters to cover the banal details of an ordinary vacation.
Surely one pool reporter could do the job of many, if even that was necessary. We have hundreds of freelance paparazzi who make a living chasing celebrities. They could hire one of those or in the alternate, simply have Obama's team release a daily press release with a photo and a description of their day. It might free up the 'journos' who are lolling around the beach to, I don't know, maybe stalk the CEOs of the companies who are spending our bailout tax dollars. Or maybe they could trail Dick Cheney. It would be good to know what he's up to at any given moment. That would be much more interesting than breathless reports about water parks and idle speculation over whether Obama will be making his home state of Hawaii his vacation destination of choice once he's in office. Furthermore it would afford the Obamas the privacy they deserve for their limited family time.
[More posts daily at The Detroit News.]
Labels: Media, President Obama
posted by Libby Spencer at 10:59 AM
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