Thursday, March 20, 2008

Tiresome coverage

I'm really growing tired of the media coverage of this election. The 24-hour news networks have to fill up so much time with garbage and seem so intent upon lowering the level of discussion to its basest point that they've come to see statements of candidates' staffers and supporters as absolutely reflective of what the candidates believe themselves.

How many times must we hear the Wright clips that they continue to play? How many times must Geraldine Ferraro's statements be spoken about (note: I didn't elect to say "analyze" or "reflect upon" because there's very little of either of those things going on over at those networks)? How are the statements of staffers or supporters actually news?

None of the candidates can completely control what the people around them do. The people in their lives and working on their campaigns do not necessarily speak to everything the candidate him/herself believes. To attempt to hold them somehow responsible for what those people say seems more than slightly flawed and frankly reeks of laziness on the part of the media who feel compelled to try to turn these things into news rather than actually investigate the myriad injustices, tragedies, and problems in the world.

Wouldn't it be nice if the media actually tried to raise the level of discourse? Maybe that's just me...

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...