Posted by
flagwaver on Tuesday, July 07, 2009 10:36:22 PM
I am a pretty sharp guy by most accounts, have gotten very good grades as a 'non-traditional student', and am a pretty astute observer of the political scene. I also keep a little bit of an eye on the media, what they cover, and how they do it. And I am a damned good spotter of horse apples and cow pucks when I see it, and here lately I have seen a lot of this coming from all over.
Last night I watched about 3 minutes of FNC's "The O'Reilly Factor" and was about ready to rip my hair out. Then I listened to Rush's show (there was a guest host) today, same reaction. Then I watched part of "Hannity" tonight, and the reaction got worse! What set me off on this particular tear? All three shows were doing segments on the coverage of Michael Jackson's death and funeral, and the hypocrisy on display was of the most rank variety.
All three shows spent their airtime groaning about the coverage that Jackson's sudden death was getting, and two of the three were busily pointing fingers at other networks for their coverage of the events surrounding Jackson...while doing their best to ignore the reality that Fox News Channel has been as complicit in pushing the stories about Jackson as anyone else. I recall watching Fox News on the day Jackson was found dead in his home; I tuned in about 2:45 (est) at the tail end of Shep Smith's show and from that point on FNC never covered anything else. Shep went off the air that afternoon covering Jackson, and was back on later that evening...covering Jackson. And in the meantime, Neil Cavuto, Glenn Beck, and Bret Baier were all preempted so that FNC could stay with their Jackson coverage. Then the primetime lineup of O'Reilly, Hannity, and Greta all were pretty much preempted...to cover Jackson. And when I went to bed that night, at around 12:30 am (est) FNC was still broadcasting live from LA on the story.
Now on Rush's show, the guest host decided to use Jackson's funeral to make some kind of political connection. Guest host Mark Belling went on a tear about what would have happened had Jackson been a conservative celebrity who had faced child molestation charges...as if that had anything to do with Jackson's funeral. As I recall, Jackson was never a political figure, never lent his name and fame to any candidate, and never publicly voiced a political opinion on any issue. In other words, Michael Jackson took Laura Ingraham's suggestion to just "Shut up and sing". So what was the point of using the media coverage of his funeral to try to make some specious political point? If it had been John Voigt's funeral, or Tom Selleck, or Rob Reiner the comments would have been appropriate, but in this instance they just made no sense at all. Maybe it was the fact that Al Sharpton spoke at the service as a friend of the man and his family that set off the commentary, but what does that say about Belling? That the mere sight of Al Sharpton on a podium sends him into some type of rage? Is that how any conservative wants to act?
Look, I understand that the coverage of Michael Jackson has been over the top. Heck, I stopped watching it because there's nothing going on with the story now but rumor, gossip, and conjecture, so I get the frustration. But for goodness sakes, the whiners like Hannity and the like need to just be honest about what's going on here. Michael Jackson's death was so sudden and shocking; his life so filled with controversies and weirdness; and his death so fraught with mystery that the story absolutely begs for this type of coverage. He was a major celebrity whose life from about the age of eleven has been played out in the public eye, so to pretend that a man that was so heavily covered by the media in life would suddenly not be covered in death is just plain stupid!
And for Hannity and O'Reilly to have the nerve to point fingers at everyone else, while doing some of the most painful looking contortions in the history of mankind in a vain attempt to excuse their network of doing the exact same thing as the MSM networks is disgusting! At the end of the day the news business is just that...a business. And it works on the same principles as any other successful business: find out what your customers (viewers) want and give it to them in a better fashion than your competition. All the angst smells like a heaping pile of hypocrisy to me, especially since neither Hannity nor O'Reilly stood on their alleged principles and chose not to air mutliple segments about Jackson. The coverage of this story has been one huge media circle jerk, and FNC has been right there shoulder to shoulder with ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and NBC in pulling their journalistic puds!
So they can miss me with their self righteousness, and their putrid hypocrisy...cause this boy ain't buying it. I'm just doing what I do...Calling a Spade!