Rampant speculation

I confess I am coming more and more to hate the idea of news 24/7. I think it would be theoretically possible to have more or less interesting news 24 hours a day, but only if you considered the entire world and reported in depth on stories that were indeed newsworthy. This is a far cry from what we get now. At the moment we are getting nothing but useless rampant speculation about most everything. No one knows, for example, who Obama is going to pick for his running mate. And he has announced clearly that he is not going to talk about it or decide for quite some time. This does not deter the “pundits” or “newspersons” from telling us all about it endlessly. Some say it will be Hillary Clinton, others say no way will it be her. None of them know. Someone suggested a “dream ticket” of Obama and Caroline Kennedy (where on earth did this idea come from?). Some say it will be Edwards (even though he has already said no). Some say it will be a woman, others say it can’t be a woman. They don’t know. Some say it will be a military man, others say a southerner, still others say it will be someone from a big state that can deliver his state, and on and on and on. None of them have any knowledge of who it will be or why, but this doesn’t keep them from constantly shooting off their mouths about it. Talk about bullshit!

They are doing the same thing with Clinton’s future. What will happen to Hillary? What will she do now? Maybe the Supreme Court. Maybe Senate leader. Maybe Governor of New York, Maybe she’ll run again. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe pigs will some day fly. No one knows what she’s going to do in the future, but they just blab on endlessly with rampant speculation. Whatever happened to the notion of patience? Can’t they at least wait until there is a genuine hint of what she might want to do?

The MSM treats all “news” like this, if, indeed, they are really even dealing in news. Something happens, say a vicious murder. They can’t wait until at least some information is actually available before they start interviewing the Sheriff, bystanders, whoever they can grab. They say they don’t know anything about it yet. We are then assured that when they do know something they will follow up on this breaking story. And then if they do get some little bit they flog it to death. How many times did you see the photo of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky together in the crowd? How many times did you see the shot of Hillary’s tears? They do this because they have too much time to kill and they are too lazy or too cheap to hire enough reporters to go around the world and actually find some news. One organization gets a bit and they all join in, like jackals at the kill, each one trying to outdo the other for a “story” that isn’t much of a story in the first place.

And the stories they do give us! Car chases in L.A. by the hour. They don’t know who is being chased or for what reason but they spend money on helicopters to follow these events until the bitter end when someone is dragged out of the vehicle that turns out to have been stolen or something. Big news. There is always Britney or some other stupid bimbo doing something really newsworthy, like running into a telephone pole or another car, or not wearing their underwear. Wow! Now that’s news! One of the big news items today was two lesbians kissing at a baseball game. Apparently some lady was offended, told the usher, who told them their behavior was inappropriate, and so now we have to have columns devoted to lesbians kissing and etc. Trying to defend this “story” they are now saying they were doing more than kissing, they were “making out.” Still others have piped in to testify that they see people making out at ball games all the time. I guess some think it is inappropriate and others don’t seem to care (as long as they are not lesbians). Personally, I never go to ball games (I don’t like crowds), but if I did I don’t think I would be particularly offended by people making out, I would just wonder why the hell they picked a ball game to do it, it would not seem to me the best place for making out. It’s like what they say about dancing, “why do something vertically that is better done horizontally?” Anyway, it is obvious that I don’t think much of news 24/7. Let’s go back to the old fashioned “News of the Day” shots they used to show at the movies. News of the day compressed into about five minutes. I suppose most of you don’t remember “News of the Day.” Trust me, it was all the news you needed for a day, reported by real reporters and cameramen, devoid of car chases and other “non-news” bits. Say, did you see the latest news, two men holding hands in the park. Wow!

LKBIQ:
“Editor: a person employed by a newspaper, whose business is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.”
Elbert Hubbard