Obama Tells the Best Political Team on Television: You Guys Have a Choice...

[kpete]

Obama Tells the Best Political Team on Television: You Guys Have a Choice...
Posted March 18, 2008 | 02:08 PM (EST)
Jay Rosen
.............................

Obama had just said to Blitzer, look: "If all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way..." And so if the reactions you report on are reactions to your reporting and video looping how are you, the talent in political television, not an actor with me in this cycle?

Wolf, Obama had just said, "We have a choice in this country." And your team at CNN has to make a choice, too. You should be asking yourselves, what's our choice, as broadcasters and journalists...

... We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

You can do that. That's one option. But I'm told you are the best political team on television. Surely you can think of something better to do between now and April 22.

Think they were listening to that part of the speech?

more at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-rosen/obama-tells-the-best-poli_b_92139.html

[Ninga]

1. The key word you used, was "listening". If they "listened" then they might hear, and if they heard

then they would have to weight the risks of denying what they heard.

CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBS, etc. are businesses about making money, selling ads and time share ratings.

If their mission statement was to "be the best in the news business" then consumers would recognize that they are, and not complain.

So their mission is not news, but money.


I listened to Obama's speech, several times. I printed out a copy and read it. I decided that there was enough in his speech to challenge me, to widen my vision regarding how I see my world, rather than hunker down and narrow my world.

[NashVegas]

2. "Get on the Bus, Or Else"

Love these guys.