And the beat goes on
By Capt. Fogg
I've been tidying up the house today, since my wife sprained her ankle getting off the boat on Monday, so I thought I'd turn on CNN for once instead of my normal sources of information. As it has been doing since I don't remember when, CNN sets the screen up like a scoreboard with the same stupid statistics about delegates and states and percentages and for what seems like hour after hour, it's hillaryobamahillaryobamahillaryobamahillaryobamahillaryobama until the next interminable commercial break. Occasionally the sound bite from mumbling McCain, unsullied by criticism, and more rarely the mention of a hundred thousand dead in Burma and the Dow down 200 points and oil over $123 a barrel; discussions of which are promised "soon" but soon never comes and after another ten minutes of weight loss pills, exercise machines miracle drugs and wonderful SUV's, its hillaryobamahillaryobamahillaryobamahillaryobama all over again, and the same simple numbers hour after hour, day after day until every bit of trivia is as mauled and unrecognizable as a rawhide dog toy in a house full of pit bulls.
I remember TV coverage of every presidential election since 1952 ( we didn't have TV until 1949) and I'm at a loss to understand it. I look at BBC, I look at the papers on line and there are hundreds of stories far more significant than Reverend Wright and the mystery of the lapel pin. There is news from Iraq, from Afghanistan, from everywhere and yet the drum beats on and on: hillaryobamahillaryobama. Has anything in the history of television been as obsessively beaten to death?
I've been tidying up the house today, since my wife sprained her ankle getting off the boat on Monday, so I thought I'd turn on CNN for once instead of my normal sources of information. As it has been doing since I don't remember when, CNN sets the screen up like a scoreboard with the same stupid statistics about delegates and states and percentages and for what seems like hour after hour, it's hillaryobamahillaryobamahillaryobamahillaryobamahillaryobama until the next interminable commercial break. Occasionally the sound bite from mumbling McCain, unsullied by criticism, and more rarely the mention of a hundred thousand dead in Burma and the Dow down 200 points and oil over $123 a barrel; discussions of which are promised "soon" but soon never comes and after another ten minutes of weight loss pills, exercise machines miracle drugs and wonderful SUV's, its hillaryobamahillaryobamahillaryobamahillaryobama all over again, and the same simple numbers hour after hour, day after day until every bit of trivia is as mauled and unrecognizable as a rawhide dog toy in a house full of pit bulls.
I remember TV coverage of every presidential election since 1952 ( we didn't have TV until 1949) and I'm at a loss to understand it. I look at BBC, I look at the papers on line and there are hundreds of stories far more significant than Reverend Wright and the mystery of the lapel pin. There is news from Iraq, from Afghanistan, from everywhere and yet the drum beats on and on: hillaryobamahillaryobama. Has anything in the history of television been as obsessively beaten to death?
Labels: Election 08, Media
posted by Libby Spencer at 4:22 PM
2 Comments:
I don't watch TV anymore but do follow all the news online. I read BBC more than any other because they are so superior to most American news sources. Yes, in the area we have 100,000 dead, 1 million homeless, a regime that is content to let the rest die for lack of aid (and no country cares to do anything about that)but every other fricking headline in the news is about the Dems Primary.
Unfortunately, there are other precedents for this tabloid mania. That girl in the Bahamas. Michael Jackson's trial.
I tried watching the teevee news myself last night. It wasn't pleasant. CNN was worse than MSNBC and they were just horrible. Tweety and Russert make me want to vomit.
Post a Comment
<< Home