Journalism

Sorting Out the Newest Contestants on America’s Next Top Presidential Scandal

May 202013

“America’s Next Top Presidential Scandal:” Worst. Show. Ever. So the second term is about defining your legacy and having your enemies do everything they can to tarnish it. In the past few weeks a lot of Scandal Spaghetti has been thrown against the wall. Overall, these allegations are pretty tame compared to what the last two guys actually did. Here are the contenders, and no, I refuse to stoop to being one of those idiot journalists who thinks it’s cute to tack on a -gate to everything. (See rant in previous post.)

Benghazi. The administration is getting heat for trying to spin the motivation/identity of the attackers. The right is in a tizzy over this one because it touches on terrorism and Hillary Clinton. Even Krauthammer thinks they are wishing too hard for this scandal to be huge, and are perhaps overhyping it.

IRS v. conservative “nonprofit” groups. Certain groups got additional scrutiny in their attempt to attain tax-exempt nonprofit status. Let’s see, we have groups that want to eliminate the IRS applying to the IRS for special treatment. What could possibly go wrong?

DOJ snooping on AP reporters. The Justice Department had a subpoena and was investigating leaks by officials to reporters. I see how this could affect the First Amendment rights of reporters to be able to provide confidentiality to their sources. The source might not want to contact a reporter if the reporter’s phone records could lead investigators back to him. Why didn’t the DOJ just get the records of the people they were investigating. “Hey, look here. According to his phone record, Mr. Leaker called this number, which belongs to a reporter at the AP.” The same facts would be discovered without damaging the reporter’s rights or reputation. Seems like this scandal is about laziness or incompetence. Of course, what the scandalmongers are really looking for is some kind of coverup.

The Marine and the Umbrella. The outrage! How dare a Marine hold an umbrella over the head of the president? I wouldn’t be surprised to hear a scandalmonger chime in and point out that the umbrella is black, and “what kind of message is that sending? Why does Obama have a deep-seated hatred for white umbrellas? And why isn’t the umbrella wearing a flag pin?”

Sad Obama

Some Thoughts Heading into Election Day

Humor, Politics No Responses »

Nov 022012

As America recovers from one disaster, here’s hoping we don’t get another next week.

In these last days before the election, the consensus is a close race. Hopefully, we can avoid a repeat of 2000′s recount madness lasting into December. Although, a conclusion on December 21st would be quite amusing, given the Mayan prophecy hype. But a more stable scenario would be having this thing decided before midnight on election day. If your election lasts more than 4 hours, seek immediate medical attention.

Since the expectation is a close contest, efforts to skew the results remain a threat. Fortunately, organized voter suppression efforts have gotten enough attention to spark a backlash and actually cause increased voter determination. On the other hand, perhaps it has been quiet during early voting because the suppression efforts are focusing their resources on election day itself. Remember, if you are confronted by a frivolous challenge, always keep your cool, take the issue to the supervising election official, call your local election board AND 1-866-OUR-VOTE to report it, and do not accept a provisional ballot without an argument.

Even when voters have navigated any gauntlet of vote truthers trying to block their vote, there remains the possibility of the election results being skewed in the counting process. This ranges from the media making a premature “call” of a key state (causing a weak loser candidate to concede) to electronic ballot tampering. Currently, the mainstream (corporate) media is consigning electronic election fraud/theft to the “conspiracy theory” bucket. They are right that it would be so outrageous that it seems to fit with other topics in said bucket. But their dismissal of the idea would be highly appreciated by those who would make the attempt, since doing so would be easier in the cover of darkness provided by the media’s darkness of coverage. The mainstream (corporate) media has, at best, scoffed at those who raise the issue. In one such controversy, the elite media fails to pick up the subtle difference between saying something can happen versus saying something will happen (and people are trying to make it happen).

I can see the logic in the press looking the other way on this (for now). If a famous reporter reports on election fraud allegations, and the alleged cheater wins, guess who loses any insider access to the winning administration in 2013? It’s about putting your career ahead of the interests of the republic. So much for traditional journalism principles.

Obama Romney Smackdown 2012

That’s just a few things to watch for on the big day, Tuesday.

Tired Phrases: The Scandal-gates

Humor, Politics 1 Response »

Jun 112012

This week many are marking the 40th anniversary of the Watergate break-in that led to the end of the Nixon administration. This event served as the origin of the stupid tradition of trying to tack on a -gate suffix to every scandal to hit the news.

A shockingly long list can be found on the Wiki It also has an interesting origin theory about the overuse tradition. Apparently, many -gate scandals have been popularly dubbed by William Safire, a former Nixon speechwriter. The theory goes that by proliferating -gate scandals Safire could successfully minimizing the legacy of outrage over the original -gate, Watergate. I think this stupid trend is too much to blame on just one man. The idiocy is far-reaching.

Others are starting to lose patience with the tradition. Monica Hesse’s ”We Can’t Have a Scandal Without the -Gate” was published this week in the paper that started it all, The Washington Post. I just love the snarky note she hits here:

“Until the ever-loving end of time, we, the people, will be destined to pluck random nouns from the news, stick “-gate” on the end, wait for it to catch on and then smugly glance around like first-graders who have just told a doody joke. Doodygate! (No.)”

It’s too bad Hesse doesn’t go all out with a raging -gate denunciation, probably out of fear of offending some of her colleagues & bosses who may be -gate friendly idiots. So let me help you.

Every time I hear of another -gate being anointed, I am reminded about how I perceived Journalism majors in college: they liked to write, but were too dumb to have a relevant content-heavy major (like History or Political Science), and they were too lazy to be English majors. That was probably a little harsh, but today I mostly have some pity for them. They likely started into the profession with some idealism, but now real journalism is dead in media is big business, and the bottom line demands ratings, not pursuit of any loftier goals like enhancing public accountability.

Maybe overusing -gate is a symptom of this. They like to adopt the suffix to tap into some of the aura of real journalism. Instead of doing the hard investigative legwork, they slap on a silly label and pretend to elevate their work to the class of Woodward and Berstein’s original.

Look, the -gate is not catchy or cute. It’s just lazy. Stop it!