Denouncing and Renouncing

[elleng]

"This denouncing and renouncing game is simply not serious. It is a media-staged theater, produced not in response to genuine concerns – no one thinks that Obama is unpatriotic or that Clinton is a racist or that McCain is a right-wing bigot – but in response to the needs of a news cycle. First you do the outrage (did you see what X said?), then you put the question to the candidate (do you hereby denounce and renounce?), then you have a debate on the answer (Did he go far enough? Has she shut her husband up?), and then you do endless polls that quickly become the basis of a new round.

Meanwhile, the things the candidates themselves are saying about really important matters – war, the economy, health care, the environment – are put on the back-burner until the side show is over, though the odds are that a new one will start up immediately." >>>

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/denouncing-and-renouncing/index.html?ref=opinion

[susankh4]

1. Good post...

and, for the record, WJC says "cut it out" with the denouncing & renouncing already. Saddle up and let's have an argument!

I have to say... I agree. I'm tired of the media frenzy every time somebody slips and says "monster" or "affirmative action" or whatever....

[GTurck]

2. I have been thinking for...

awhile that part of our political-social problems is 24/7 news.
Much of the inanity and worse has come since there has been all-news cable channels. Sorry to say that I remember the state of news back in the day of Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and Huntley & Brinkley. All of them had only 15 minutes in which to deliver world and national news; which meant using only the most pertinent or dire events of the day. They had to heavily edit their news wires which modern day news channels do not have to do.
I also remember when time constraints on local news was limited to local news, weather, sports. Now we get something bloody close to home followed by something bloody farther way followed by something bloody on the other side of the world. Local issues? Sometimes happens when there is not anything bloody happening.
24/7 News is not about to go away but perhaps "We the People" can find other ways to know what we need to know. I think this is the promise of the Internet. But we have to be able to trust any who would purport to give us that news. That is another issue.

[elleng]

3. I agree, Turck,

that much of the 'bad' 'news' appeared after 24/7 appeared; they think they have to find something to say 24/7.

Reminds me of complaints of friends and family; 'why don't we hear from you?' Well, I just don't do well with blather. If I've got something interesting or 'news worthy,' I'll call! (And my judgment about what's worth it has changed since I was a teenager!)

[GTurck]

4. I have that problem and..

verbal foot in mouth disease. I can write well enough but somehow when I talk to people face to face I am a blathering idiot so I wait until I have what I want to say set in my mind. Oddly I was once a stringer on a local newspaper. From that experience I learned how hard it is to re-write and re-write any sort of report and make it fresh and interesting all the time. That was a weekly paper so imagine the challenge of 24/7. Oh and many of them have foot in mouth disease as well but don't want to admit it.