Tuesday, September 20, 2011

MEDIA MADNESS


When did it happen, that the Media became the adviser to the President, to the White House, to the nation, to the world?

The media is a bunch of salespeople, educated, nice looking sales clerks who are shaping your life and mine.

They are vocal, assured. They've got big words and factual references that a staff digs up. They're telling Obama what the "global new deal" ought to be, and selling the media's new deal prospectus to us.

Yes, selling it. And they themselves are gussied up, advised, directed by advertising experts in convincing the market place -- that's us, the audience. They're putting down, demeaning, minimizing, psychoanalyzing Obama. They're patting him on the back with condescending compliments -- "Obama's nice idea is all wrong," and showing photos of his downcast, worried face.

They are Joe the plumber. We are Joe the plumber. Yes, I'm Joe the plumber, but I stand back and look at the words like birds in the air -- pigeons flapping their wings and dropping their excretions wherever, whenever nature calls.

We have Pew Polls, Gallup, Nielsen, Rassmusssen, YouGov, Zogby, Ipsos, Harris, etc etc. We have preachers, politicians, commentators, authors, editors, staff writers, all manner of news personnel birding out strong convictions, judgments, critiques.

I can't plug my ears. I don't close my eyes. I like to see the lay of the land -- squint sometimes and see the sparkle dust in the air. But statistical numbers and warnings are opinion shapers that confine me to what the media ladies and gents are selling.

Also, we've got housewives from everywhere, Jersey shore folks, winners, losers, celebs, talky talking telling their tales about nothing and nasty news, nifty news, nerdy news, all the latest news about e v e r y t h i n g.

None of it is news. It's views. It's do-do.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, sadly the media frenzy tries to control our very existence! It's frightening how we are taken in and swayed by their VIEWS which might not be correct,,,but in their opinion. Yes, we must stay in the driver's seat and make the media take a back seat in our vehicle called LIFE! YES, keep your eyes and ears wide open but if need be wear shades and earplugs sometimes to thwart the neverending sights and sounds of a MEDIA GONE OUT OF CONTROL!
kam Kathleen Ann McGee

Carola said...

I was going to ask how Abe Lincoln or FDR would have fared, given today's media. But then I remember that newspapers were much more prevalent and influential then, and those presidents had a hard time with the media too. There was a pamphleteer in John Adams time who nearly destroyed some of the founding fathers' reputations.