Griper Blade: To Fix the Media, Kill Phony Objectivity

I've been ripping on the media lately and not without good cause. We've seen what may have been the worst and most uninformative presidential debate of our lifetime. Well, worst and most uninformative to date, anyway. There may not be any lower limit to just how bad television news can make things. We've seen the media give John McCain the kid gloves treatment, meeting terrible campaign decisions and appearances with near-applause. We've seen the media acting as stenographers to power, repeating everything they're told without examining whether or not any of it is true.

Still, the fourth estate is not dead, merely sick. Perhaps dying. But it's not done yet. Print journalism, at least, is still kicking. And sometimes producing great work. We see the difference in coverage of Iraq. Where TV media tends to show us Iraq as a big map, print journalists show us that people live and work within the borders. When watching cable news or the networks, it's often as if you're watching from the moon. Everything you see is shown as a matter of nations, not people. And, since nations are at their most basic entirely conceptual, coverage of Iraq becomes an academic exercise. It's not a war, it's a game, and Iraq is that weird shaped piece in the middle east. Take Iraq and the grand plan to capture Yakutsk and Kamchatka moves apace.

McClatchy Baghdad Correspondent Leila Fadel reprints part of a letter from a mother that reminds us why a more focused and earthly approach to the news is still important. In response to an article and accompanying video about US troops in Sadr City, she wrote:

Lt Adam Bowen is my son. You were with him and his platoon a few days ago in Sadr City. When I read your article, which so accurately depicted him, I could hear him talking and hear his tone of voice in each quote. But then I saw the video. I watched it, with lots of trepidation, hoping for a just quick glimpse of him. When the camera panned around the room, and I found myself face to face with him, it was such an incredible moment. I’ve watched it over and over and have paused it repeatedly just to be able to look at him, to see if he’s okay. (He looks well—I hope you found him so.) I play it again and again, hearing him in the background on the radio.

"Something Lt. Bowen said to me has stuck with me," Fadel writes. "'Nobody cares about what we're doing here, nobody but our families.' I hope that's not true."

At the risk of conjuring memories of Soylent Green, I'd remind TV media outlets that the news is people. Maps are just some crap we made up and arbitrarily imposed on the world.

Griper Blade: Bush Administration Turned Away Foreign Aid After Katrina

It was a defining moment in George W. Bush's presidency. Hurricane Katrina exposed him for what he really is -- an incompetent boob, more concerned with spin than with real world events. As the flood waters rose and people drowned, Bush told us that Brownie was doing a heckuva job and everything was going fan-freakin'-tastic. It quickly became apparent that this wasn't the case.

It took days to respond to a storm we knew was coming nearly a week in advance. News networks seemed to have no problem getting to the affected areas right away, but the National Guard seemed to find getting there impossible -- incredibly, equipment that would've helped in flooding had been sent to the desert in Iraq.

New York Times, via AMERICAblog:

Pentagon officials asserted that deployment of thousands of National Guard members from the gulf states to Iraq and Afghanistan had not affected relief efforts. But on Tuesday the two hardest-hit states, Louisiana and Mississippi, which each have more than 3,000 National Guard troops in Iraq, requested military specialists and equipment from other states, ranging from military police and engineers to helicopters and five-ton, high-wheeled trucks that can traverse the flood waters.

Hospitals were cut off, police were non-existent, mass panic took hold, and many people wondered how an administration that talked a good game about being ready for a major terrorist attack could be so unprepared for an event with the same consequences of a such an attack. Exposed as a major league BSer, Bush's long slide in the polls began.

We thought we knew everything about the response to Katrina. The total lack of advanced planning, the slowness of FEMA to act, the inability of the Bush administration to take it's responsibilities seriously. But it turns out that things were worse. When other nations offered help, Bush turned them away...

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Griper Blade: The All New War on Terror -- Now With 90% More 'Helpfulness!'

Rockey Vaccarella and George W. Bush

I've written before how the Bush administration seems to believe that every problem is solved by public relations. When Bush was getting flack for the response to Hurricane Katrina, he rigged a PR stunt that was stunning in its total contempt for people still recovering from the storm and for everyone's intelligence. The fact that it was also unbelievably cruel was just bonus, I suppose.

The White House hooked up with a guy named Rockey Vaccarella to pull off a hoax. Vaccarella took a FEMA trailer up to Washington for what everyone assumed would be a protest. Rockey had set up a myspace page that sounded one hell of a lot like he was going to give Bush an earful -- or, as he put it, to "deliver a simple yet powerful message." "We want to thank President Bush and the American people for everything they have done so far for south Louisiana and the Gulf Coast region," he wrote on his page, "But, to remind everyone that the job is not complete and to please do whatever is possible to help clean-up and re-build so our people can return home."

People from the region left comments on his page, expressing their frustration. "When you make it there kick Bush in the ass one good time for taking so long," read one. "Go Rockey! Good luck and I'm glad someone is doing something about our parish!!!! Thanks!!" read another.

These people could be excused for thinking they'd found their Cindy Sheehan. Vaccarella's plan was to demand a dinner with the president to deliver his message. To everyone's surprise, he got it. He and Bush stood together for the cameras while Vaccarella thanked Bush for all the good work he'd done in the area. The White House has the transcript of Rockey's 'protest.'

...my mission was very simple. I wanted to thank President Bush for the millions of FEMA trailers that were brought down there. They gave roofs over people's head. People had the chance to have baths, air condition. We have TV, we have toiletry, we have things that are necessities that we can live upon.

But now, I wanted to remind the President that the job's not done, and he knows that. And I just don't want the government and President Bush to forget about us. And I just wish the President could have another term in Washington...

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