Stop the Play-By-Play and Get in the Game

Reporters, do your jobs. Please, we need you desperately. This play-by- play "analysis" of politics has got to stop. Endless hours of speculation about which candidate called the other "nice" and what it means. Children on the playground have more profound dialogue.

I hung a map of the world up the other day and ran out of thumbtacks before I could pin-point all the countries that now hate us or think we are involved in sabotaging them.

A world spinning in chaos and reporters get sucked into conversations and elaborate speculation about the political implications of the "N" word---"NICE?" This country is in so much trouble, one government teacher wrote me the other day and said she had no idea what to teach her students. She asked, "Do I tell them their president committed treasonous acts?"

Reporters have a duty to push the dialogue forward with analysis. This tit-for-tat reporting does not do anything but make the bad guys happy and frustrate the voters. It's all inside the beltway stuff. Ordinary citizens don't give a rats behind about who called who nice or not and the potential political impact it may have on which candidate.

Ordinary citizens do care that corporations they work for are downsizing, they cannot afford health care, their children are getting a poor education, and our government agencies are protecting corporations instead of its citizens. Ordinary people worry about their pension plans and social security. With two wars on two fronts our little blue planet may not be around much longer to fight over.

Please, reporters, help Americans focus on the issues. They are complicated and not conducive to a 30-second soundbite. Unfortunately that means citizens have to find a conduit for news that is not corporate sponsored. There are a few good ones left...but most media corporations no longer do their jobs. Find good non-profit publications for now. Support the reporters who ask the questions you would, and support that publication financially.

There is much to do. Get out of the play-by-play box reporters, get in the game and direct the conversations into productive dialogue. This country needs you.

Comments

[TalkingFrog]

Real reporting seems to have been outsourced along with engineering, manufacturing, computer programming, accounting and customer support. Reporters who focus on the issues and provide analysis can be found overseas. In ancient times, access to foreign news was provided by short-wave radio. It was often quite interesting to see how a foreign news agency reported an event also covered by U.S. network news (e.g., Radio Moscow's coverage of the Soviet shoot-down of the Korean jetliner) and which events they chose to report on.

Now, the Interweb provides EZ access to BBC, Radio Netherlands, Stern, Telegraph, and a host of other news conduits- with many news articles conveniently translated into English. Of course, some of these news sources might have their own bias or agenda. If you want to get an idea of how the U.S. is perceived abroad, "Watching America" is one place to start. I don't know anyone who takes the U.S. MSM seriously anymore.

[Counterglow]

Please quit calling them "reporters". These are infotainment specialists, and most of them wouldn't recognize a news story even if it trotted up and sank its fangs into their crotch.

[JScott]

I noticed it too-it's all being reported as if it's a sports item-who's ahead in the rankings-and that most overused cliche-(the candidate who's running goes here) has/is (gaining/losing)
'momentum'.

[joja]

My god, woman!! What are you saying??!!

This would absolutely RUIN Karl Rove's plans for a Neocon agenda!

[mamacat]

Good blog, timely topic. How much of the lack of good reporting is due to individual choices by individual reporters, and how much is due to the order to follow the teleprompter during a "newscast"? Whoever controls the teleprompter, controls the news, no?

[SimplySimon]

The nature of poop is to flow downhill. The owners dictate the tune. Reporters have to put corporate concerns over public concerns for the paychecks to keep flowing. It's a gig, like make believe; you play right field rather than left, Indian rather than Cowboy. It's a game where we weave our willing suspension of disbelief around the matter and march in step with the one who owns the platform and hands you a microphone.

Everything here is soiled with greed.

[HeevenSteven]

Good Luck!

Let's see, in MSM broadcast media we have: Mill Moyers, Keith Olberman, sometimes Chris Matthews,.... I know there must be others,.... Who am I missing.. Oh yeah, the best and brightest: Stewart, and Colbert. Isn't is sad that the best are satirists? What's the score 10,000 to 5?

[realitytrumpsbull]

A news reporter's job is to cover the 5 w's,
not just curl up at Dubyah's feet etc. That
means muckraking, that means researching,
that means talking to people, getting facts,
getting information, compiling it into a
report, hence the term, 'reporter'.
'Bullshitter', a different word, hence the
variation in the spelling, describes a person
that likes to flap their gums a lot and try
and convince other people to their point of
view. See the difference, there, reporter, bullshitter? The public does...they don't
call it Crappy News Network for nothing, you
know...

[AlexHidell]

Kevin Phillips wrote the game plan of corporate globalization's end result, the end of the US economic empire. The book is Wealth and Democracy, see

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Kevin_Phillips/Wealth_Democracy.html

In the long run also see Jeremy Rifkin's The End of Work, showing the decline of labor and the labor movement, to be replaced with mostly non-profits

http://www.jobsletter.org.nz/art/rifkin01.htm

This also is verified by Alan Tonelson's The Race to the Bottom, btw. The era of cheap oil allowed for this false economy and now we're going to see a return to The Olive Tree (as in Tom Friedman's The Lexus and The Olive Tree).

[texanna]

You've hit the nail on the head with your plea, Ms. Griffith. Unfortunately, I don't think it will be heeded by journalists because their corporate owners have way too much at stake to have an informed electorate. Even on non-traditional sources such as the Huffington Post, the lure of of the tit-tat reportage can't be resisted as is evidenced by several of the over-heated headlines and the he said/he said/she said stories that get posted. No, I think the citizens of this country are going to have to work VERY hard to become fully informed and fortunately the internet does provide many ways to do that. Of course, it will take a little effort, but look at what being lazy has gotten us to date.

[lgillooly]

Sadly,they are doing exactly what their owners want.When 5 or 6 megacorporations own the media and 91 percent of talk radio is Neocon hate speech we have to realize there is no longer a Free and true Press which is a necessary component of Democracy.Our number 1 issue should be to reinstate Fairness and deconsolidate media ownership otherwise we have to admit our Country has gone the way of Fascism.

[mommadona]

OK, let's review:

A TALKING HEAD or a PUNDIT is NOT a reporter.
They are OPINIONATED.

A REPORTER just reports the FACTS known at the moment.

DAMN GOOD REPORTERS:

Arwa Damon
http://pajamasmedia.com/2006/05/who_is_arwa_damon.php

Christiana Amanpour
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheldon-drobny/onward-christian-soldiers_b_61724.html