It was certainly an odd, awful day. I happened to be in downtown Chicago, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital taking my dad for a couple of check-ups following his surgery last week. Going down to get the car, I heard the news about Boston, and the local Chicago follow-up mentioned a big CTA subway fire, and it wasn't clear from the report where it was just an electrical fire or what. And then a few minutes later, sirens began screaming through the area. It was impossible to know if they were going to the CTA fire, or if it was to some other problem, or if it was simply something coming to the hospital. I still don't know, though I don't think it was hospital-related.
I turned the news off on the ride home, because I thought the last thing my 91-year-old dad, coming downstairs from cardiology appointments, needed to hear. He did catch up with the news quite a bit later, though, when he got back to his room at the Care Center of his residence. It's the "quite a bit later" that gnawed. I fully understand the massive media coverage -- how could one not? But at a certain point, after an hour or two, you get the story, and there's nothing new to report. All you end up with is repeating and repeating the horror and playing right into the hands of people whose only purpose is to get attention for causing horror. When there's news to report, report it. Other than that, hysteria feeds hysteria.
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Yesterday, I was out driving and turned to CBS radio for the national news at the top of the hour. The first story was about the economy. The second top national news story was that Tiger Woods had been penalized two strokes at the Masters golf tournament. The third most important story of the hour was that the Lakers' Kobe Bryant got injured and would likely be out of the remainder of the basketball season. And the fourth story was Secretary of State John Kerry reporting on a meeting he had with Chinese officials and getting a commitment for the two national to work together to keep North Korea from advancing it's threats of nuclear war.
All I could think when listening to the broadcast was what kind of screwed up priorities did the guy running the national news desk have yesterday at CBS?? I know that the weekend is generally an odd, off-time for national news, but that's no excuse. I mean, seriously -- putting Kobe Bryant behind a simple two-stroke penalty?! What was he thinking? Oh, that John Kerry thing about nuclear war? The guy lost when he ran for president. Couldn't they at least have given the Cubs score first? All that aside, I really have no idea what on earth they were doing. Yesterday, I wrote this piece explaining why the fake outrage that Megyn Kelly of "Fox News" expressed at Rachel Maddow for calling Supreme Court Justice an Internet "troll" was just fake outrage. After all, an Internet troll isn't an ogre living under a bridge, an Internet troll is not a horrifying description of the worst that mankind has to offer. An Internet troll is simply a person who says something purely for effect, to get a reaction. Calling someone a "troll," is merely a short-hand way to say, "I think you're just saying that to get a rise out of people, and I don't know if you even believe it."
Well, it turns out (to no surprise, I suppose) that it gets even worse than just Ms. Kelly, lest you thing Fox News couldn't pander any more than they do. O, ye of little faith... In an article on the Fox News website, the headline is, "Rachel Maddow calls Scalia a 'troll,' like blogger 'using N-word'" Honest. They said that. Headlined it. Calling someone a "troll," is, of course, utterly nothing like a blogger using the "N" word -- unless perhaps you're someone who wants to intentionally outrage your readers who don't know any better about blogging, or about much of anything. Like, say -- a troll does. A person who says something only for effect, just to get a reaction. Then again, maybe this is what Fox think black people do with everything they say. That it's just to outrage the white folks. But of course, perhaps all this is much simpler: maybe this is just a Fox ploy to make Megyn Kelly look like the rational one. Alas, it didn't work. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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