Resources / Ripples & Wipeouts

Last night I wanted to watch Joy Behar on Larry King so I turned on CNN a few minutes early and happened to catch Campbell Brown talking – complaining really – about the plan for Sarah Palin’s appearances at the UN this week. 

Brown was reacting to the fact that Palin will not be taking any questions from reporters while she participates in this two-day cram session for her upcoming debate with Joe Biden.  The only difference between these meetings and an all-night study session in some college dorm is that Palin will presumably not be taking benzedrine.  She’ll be posing with a carefully selected group of world figures – so-called “anti-terror ally” Hamid Karzai, Columbian president Alvaro Uribe and Bono, whose face-to-face with the unpredictable, gun-toting Palin might be captioned “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb,” or perhaps “Actung, Baby.”

But Palin isn’t the real issue here.  She’s doing what comes natural for a political lightweight who can’t stand up even to the softball questions most reporters can be expected to throw at her.  What irks me is a mainstream media (MSM) outlet like CNN whining from the sidelines about hyper-managed photo ops and the fact that Palin will come off looking like she knows more than she really does.  Whose fault is that really?

No mention was made of the collaboration required from CNN and other corporate media for Palin & Co. to pull off this ruse.  By the end of Brown’s story, I was hoarse from screaming at my television, exhorting CNN to simply refuse to cover such an event.  After all, it’s not news; at best, it’s a mockumentary. 

Well, apparently Brown heard me because I just read on the HuffPost that CNN found some backbone and refused to cover what one reporter is calling “the no talk express.” Score one for the People, capital P, who seem to always be the ones shortchanged by the election process. 

PJ O’Rourke once hilariously referred to television as the fourth branch of government and, scarily, that seems less funny and more real by the minute.  It is television, after all, that is the prime beneficiary of the millions poured into the endless rounds of 30-second ads we’re forced to endure each election season.  And therein lies the lesson:  The MSM, most significantly television, are huge corporate entities whose primary purpose is to sell advertising.  Reporting the news is secondary.

-- Bonnie McEwan