Shoot Your TV With a Large Caliber Pistol

I am sure most politically minded readers are glued to the TV today, but if I could impress upon you to turn it off. . . CNN, FOX, and MSNBC have been strutting as of late because of the bump their ratings have gotten due to the . . . monumental nature of the Presidential election. Aristotle said something to the effect of "the only thing worse than ignorance is ignorance feigning intelligence." Cable news is the poster child of this quote. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution had an article here in which they describe the glee these networks are enjoying due to the buzz around Obama, McCain, Romney, and Clinton, and it is nauseating. My favorite quote is from Tom Rosenstiel, a "fellow" at some cable news watchdog think tank: ""There is no blade of grass that isn't chewed over until it's liquified. Every small detail, every new poll, every tarmac stop." I am not sure which blades of grass he is referring to, but I don't think Mitt Romney's church, Hillary Clinton's raging emotions, or Barack Obama's race constitute intelligent and definitive coverage of what exactly we are voting for.

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are a tough sell to Republicans because they have an obvious idealogical axe to grind. However, the one hypocrisy they are both extremely adept at exposing are the motives behind cable news. I dare you to find any cable news segment detailing the minutae of mandatory health insurance mandates, practical repercussions of protectionist trade rhetoric, or the growing pipeline/oil crisis between Iran and Eastern Europe. Viewers evidently would rather see a Hannity or Olbermann-esque diatribe on Hillary's plunging necklines or Romney's underwear preference. And the networks aren't wrong - they are privy to polls and ratings numbers that we aren't. As Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are always telling us, money is at the root of this coverage. We watch it, we are enamored by it. The only way it will ever change is if we turn off the TV.

And we should. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are consistently being attacked for idealogical bias, but I read them because I know that the best left leaning journalists are working for the NYT, and the best right leaning journalists are working for the WSJ. I know where they are coming from. It is much harder to determine what corporate interests are being served on cable news.