Really nothing vs real news
I find it sadly interesting that there are significantly more stories on and offline, in print and on the air already about the SNL skit where potential VP Palin was portrayed by Tina Fey, then about Sarah Palin’s son Track (seriously where did they get these kids names) - along with the rest of his battalion - deploying to Iraq last week.
Considering the SNL skit happened basically Sunday AM (i.e. roughly 36 hours ago), and on a weekend, compared to almost 5 days for the deployment story , which happened Thursday - on the anniversary of 9/11, then the number of stories / discussion buzz is even more interesting to me. One would think that the deployment of a child of the potential Vice President on the 7 anniversary of the worst attack on American soil by enemies of this nation in over 50 years would get a bit of buzz.
Like Sarah Palin, dislike her, etc isn’t it more news worthy that the son of the potential VP is leaving for war then if a comedy skit was accurate, funny, who wrote it, who was in it, what Palin thought of it, etc. Right or left, liberal or conservative, pro Palin or anti Palin, the number of stories about what really is a non event and something that will be forgotten by mid week compared to something that is truly unique in several generations,i.e. newsworthy, is a worrisome trend regarding the interests, ideals, and views of both the press and the average US citizen in my eyes.
Understand I am not blaming the press for this solely as they are only giving the people what the people want, but the press does deserve some blame as they have covered some stories in the past that are of no to little interest to the average America simply due to their value in history. I am also not saying that Governor Palin, her family or her son are any better then all the other soldiers families or soldiers that a deployed at war time, but they and their family are different due to her current position as a VP candidate. Additionally, understand I would say the same thing about both the press, it’s selection of stories, and the interests of the average American if a child of McCain, Obama or Biden were deploying. Bottom line, this is a significant event. It is one which is rarely seen today, and it is one that deserves more coverage then it has received.
Additionally, one should not bite at the seductive lure of respecting the privacy of the family either as modern politics / coverage of politics has included the detailed coverage of families members of candidates on both sides of the aisle for over 20 years now. With the exception of Al Gore son’s DUI (personally I still want to know how he got that Prius to over 100 but WHATEVER) dropping from the news in about 12 hours, the actions of family members of both sitting and potential Presidents and Vice Presidents ON BOTH SIDES OF THE AISLE have been closely scrutinized / followed for over a generation now.
Basically, I am just lamenting our societal shift from long form news coverage to sound bites, and the public’s interest in celebrity over history, fun over work and the continuation of a disturbing trend toward more coverage / interest in historically unimportant things in relation to things that could potentially be historic. Uh uh, got to go, I have to go and check my Facebook account and see how my Mob Wars campaign is going.
