What Happened To Getting Real News?

As my morning routine dictates, I watched Good Morning, America this morning. While it's nice to get the news updates of the day, for me it is more important to have idle chatter going on in the background than to actually pick up on any of the news. This particular morning I happened to be actually paying attention to a segment in which they were discussing the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court by President Obama. It's a topical subject, and one that I am actually interested in as I just don't know enough yet about her to understand if I support her or not.

This being a well-respected newscast I was under the assumption that the reporters would provide some real insight into the subject or bring to light some information that may be useful to the audience. I forgot, however, that I was watching an American "journalist" broadcast, which means no actual news can be reported, only partisan rhetoric.

The Good Morning, America team invited a Fox News anchor person on to discuss her opinions on Elena Kagan's nomination. Fox news as a whole, being possibly the most partisan "news" network we have in the States, does not know how to provide true journalistic insight into ANY topic, and this particular anchorwoman clearly was a devotee to the Fox News slant.

Her argument against Kagan? That having military recruiters separated from other organizations on Harvard's campus was equivalent to installing a "Separate But Equal" mentality into Harvard, and that doing so was just so, so wrong. After recovering from the daze of being struck with a 10-ton block of Irony, I had to hold myself back from screaming at the screen (my damn sexy fiancé still being asleep and all). The reason military recruiters were restricted on Harvard's campus? Because of the military's Don’t Ask, Don't Tell policy. That policy conflicts with the Universities non-discrimination and inclusion policies, which are designed specifically to combat "Separate But Equal" situations. So the right wing thinks it can slander a SCOTUS candidate by crying discrimination when it was the right wing that enshrined discrimination into the military? Right... good luck with that...

That whole debacle aside, it got me thinking about the state of journalism in the US. Specifically that we don't have it any more. Journalists are suppose to be impartial and are only suppose to report on the facts so that the partisan masses can make up their own minds. Instead, "journalists" engage partisan hacks at every turn to report their Opinions on a subject, but never really reveal any new facts. We are left to fact find for ourselves.

Look at any of the major news networks. CNBC brings out the Liberal viewpoint almost without contradiction, Fox does the same for the conservative view point, then CNN provides "both sides" of the story, but that just devolves into partisan talking points being barked on air. Have we forgotten that the entire point of journalism is to shed light on news stories, and that the onus of deciding how to feel about said stories is entirely on the audience? Apparently we have.

To me it is sad that I hear and read better Journalistic efforts in the gaming world than I do in the world of "hard news." I can go to any number of gaming news sites to get impartial news about the day's gaming happenings, all from bloggers mind you (who are not Journalists, according to the biased talking heads on Fox, CNN, CNBC, etc.), but I can't find a single source of non-biased Hard News any more.

There is still plenty of value in Opinionated Reporting. I rather enjoy watching Rachel Maddow, and there are those who somehow find Bill O'Reilley bearable. I also enjoy reading some opinionated blogs. But I know I'm only getting one side of a story when I read and hear these things, which makes it very hard for me to form an actual opinion on a topic. I may agree with Keith Olbermann more often than not, but when I know that he is only reporting on things that reflect positively on his opinion, I have a hard time giving him a blank check of credibility.

I want News again. I want Journalism. I want to be able to have enough actual, solid information on any given subject to be able to form real opinions and to have factual, honest debates with those who form opposing opinions. I'm tired of getting party-written talking points fed to me by "journalists." And I am tired of hunting for that information on my own. I have a full-time job already. The reason these "journalists" are employed is to spend their days finding information to report so that people like me who have non-journo jobs can get that information. That's how the job market is suppose to work. Instead, we have a broken system of EntertaiNews that rewards partisan barking over actual information gathering.

Am I likely to give up watching Good Morning, America or Rachel Maddow Show or any of the other programs I normally watch now? Being a creature of habbit, probably not. But if given the opportunity to watch a Real News show for once arises and it happens to be in one of those times slots, I may just abandon my current News programs for something a bit more on par with what I'm looking for. Sadly, I don't see that happening any time soon.

Fight For Your Own Money, Please

Yesterday, I spent the evening watching talking heads speak about Tea Bagging. I watched Rachel Maddow giggle with glee as she marveled at the protestors ignorance of the colloquial meaning of Tea Bagging. I listened as Keith Olberman derided the Tea Baggers as puppets of the grand corporate marketing scheme. I even witnessed Anderson Cooper admit to not being able to effectively talk while being Tea Bagged. And it was all good stuff.

But with all the Liberal pundits spouting off about the hilarious double entendre of Tea Bagging, I had to stop and wonder exactly what they were protesting. Just like every protest, some random, non-related people showed up to join in the protesting fun. Racists freaks, anti-Government bums, Christian "Rights" groups, and even pro-war protesters (whatever the fuck that means) showed up to join in the fun. I swear, it's like a gay rights march in reverse. The problem I had though is that the talking heads tended to focus on those fringe characters to deride the protestors as Crazy or Insane when the fringe participants were hardly representatives of the majority there. They weren't shunned in most cases, mind you, but I hardly think one man carrying a racist, anti-Obama poster counts as the totality of the message the larger group was trying to convey.

I'm willing to set aside a few of the fallacies of this "grass-roots" movement to examine the concept. Sure, it wasn't a grass roots movement, it was backed by and supported by corporate lobbyist firms. And sure, many of the protestors were protesting Obama's bailout package… even though they supported Bush's less-stringent version just a few months ago. Putting that all aside, do these people have a point? Will the raising of taxes on the wealthiest Americans (which, by the by, would not affect the overwhelmingly vast majority of the protestors in the least) really do anything to save our country? And will these bailout packages make a difference?

In my opinion… well, I have no idea if the bailouts will save us. Finance is not my area, and it's obviously not the area of most of the talking heads on TV. Most of the experts seem to think they will help, but I've grown weary of partisan experts anyway, so it's hard to say. What I can say is that if you get a chance to watch last night's Daily Show, you should probably do so, as their guest did a great job at explaining why the past 10 years of deregulation have led us to this point, and how re-regulating industries rife with greed can only benefit us all. If we need to bail out all the financial institutions in this country in order to reign in their practices, than so be it.

What else I know is that I'm still amazed at how easily poor and middle class Americans can be manipulated to fighting for rich people. I did not hear of many wealthy people showing up at these Tea Parties, the people that are actually affected by Obama's tax increases. Instead I saw tons of middle-class white people crying. Why? I still have no idea. Just like yesterday's post about the fight for Marriage, I am baffled at why middle-class people that will NEVER be in that top 1% of the wealth curve insist on fighting for rich people's right to have, keep and make more money than them. It's as if they are still disillusioned into believing they'll be there some day, if only they buy enough lottery tickets…

I just don't understand is all. We've got A LOT to fight for in our lives, and these people choose to fight over some one else's money. Let the rich people complain about their money themselves! Stop fighting about what isn't yours in the first place and get back to working on things that will actually affect your quality of life.

Olberman Gone Hawt!

I love Keith Olberman, and this is a pretty decent mock of him. 

As a side note, is it just me, or has Ben Affleck actually hotter now than he was a few years ago?  Or is it just an absence makes the heart grow fonder kind of thing?

Keith Olberman On Palin's Pallin' Around

Oh, my dear Keith... everyday that goes by, I wonder if we aren't related some how.