Man, I leave my computer post for a weekend and I end up missing some highly entertaining events in the news.
You know what? Let me quit lying; I was here when these two stories occurred, but I didn’t have time to blog’em, so I’m doing it now. And since everyone and their dog has been blogging this, I’ll just mention that you can go here to read about the bogus, and heavily rehearsed teleconference between Bush and soldiers in Iraq, and you can go here to watch a video of it. To follow Bush’s fake teleconference, I now present you with a NBC reporter who got caught exaggerating in her report. I’m scared to ask how much of that went on during reports that followed Katrina and Rita.
I’ll make my commentary on those two videos short. Back in the eighties when sports organizations were under scrutiny for drug abuse, Vince McMahon of the World Wrestling Federation came forward and stated that pro-wrestling was scripted, and that although quite a bit of athleticism went into the activity, pro-wrestling was what he called“sports entertainment” and not a true sport. And since Vince came forward with that information pro-wrestling was never in any kind of danger of regulation by the government as far as drug testing went. I think media outlets should embrace Vince’s courage and come forward and tell the public quite plainly that they are not, in fact, real journalistic organizations. They are “news entertainment” organizations, and should not be held to the same standards as organizations that try to uphold journalistic integrity.
That way when Bill O’Reilly begins screaming at people on his show the viewers would understand that his anger has nothing to do with his moral sensitivity or his patriotism, but rather stems from Bill’s natural acting ability which drives him to fully embody the character he plays on the news show. Same thing with Michael Moore. His fans need to know that his slovenly, hippie appearance and his propensity to use a low, gravely voice during the voice-over portions of his documentaries are simply carefully scripted idiosyncrasies designed to endear him to the college crowd and piss off the conservatives. Why do they need to know that? For the same reason Tom Cruise fans need to know that Tom can’t really fly a plane or drive a NASCAR. It’s dangerous to ascribe talents to individuals who really do not have the talents ascribed to them. People end up relying on those individuals and then getting let down when they don’t perform. The portions of those individuals that the public sees are constructed aspects of a character”¦they are not real people, and the quicker the viewing audience learns that we are all just watching one big scripted show the better off we’ll all be. At some point we can collectively demand the cancellation of the political show we’ve been watching and demand another one.