Where Have the DEBATES Gone?

After all the hype and fanfare about these "historic" Presidential debates, I have one question:

Where is the DEBATING?

So far, all we've heard in the two Presidential debates and the completely laughable Vice-Presidential debate are small snippets of the candidates' convention acceptance speeches.

John McCain can just repeat his talking points, not having to even make eye contact with his opponent, and even refer to Obama as "that one" without much repercussion.

Barack Obama can bore the nation with long-winded answers that do everything but directly answer the question posed.

No candidate has yet to be truly challenged or put in the hot seat for any inordinate length of time. Contestants on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" have to endure more pressure than either Presidential candidate.

Worse of all, no moderator had the guts to stand up to the candidates and force them to answer the questions. Gwen Ifill, Tom Brokaw, and Jim Lehrer are great backup players for Larry King's softball interview team.

Honestly, I don't even know if I'll waste my time watching the third and final "debate". We'll learn nothing about the candidates during those 90 minutes of scripted banter-- except that the level of American political discourse has yet again fallen to a shamefully low level.

Gaslight Anthem Review

“They can take our lives, but they can never take… our FREEDOM!” This wasn’t a Braveheart reenaction, but words chanted by The Gaslight Anthem’s front man Brian Fallon in the Cook Campus Center on Friday, September 12th. And when Brian Fallon starts a chant, you can bet the crowd will answer accordingly.
The New Brunswick-based band has only been together for about two and-a-half years, but already have a following that can fist-pump with the best of them and just released their second solid album, ‘The ’59 Sound’. After touring throughout Europe for the past few months, they returned to the old stomping grounds of Central Jersey after being contacted by 90.3 The Core radio station. “We played in New York in August, so I guess that was the last time we played in the area.” said drummer Benny Horowitz. “Before that was a fun secret show at a friend’s house a few months ago, but that’s it.” So the band, as well as the loyal local fans, was due for an update.
The Core’s booked opening acts Let Me Run and The King Left, and would have included Polar Bear Club if it weren’t for a faulty tour bus. In rightful punk-rock fashion, they got the crowd moving and pumped for as the lead singer of the King Left said, “a band that needs no introduction.” Starting off Friday’s set with the haunting anthem “Red in the Morning” off of their first album ‘Sink or Swim’ was a fitting introduction. When asked if the Wyckoff Street rockers prepare the set list ahead of time, Horowitz said “about a half an hour beforehand.” But there is really no need to choose too carefully from the band’s selection of songs, since out of their 27 released songs they played a straight 20. “Old White Lincoln is probably my favorite to play live,” remarked Horowitz, “it sounds like you’re at an 80s dance party and it really gets the crowd moving.”
The band takes many cues from the crowd when performing, whether it is by shouting Mel Gibson quotes or taking requests. Would they play Kelly Clarkson if asked? “I won’t name names… but some members of the band have a thing for Kelly Clarkson. So yeah.” No Kelly Clarkson was in fact played, but the band did cover Arthur Conley’s ‘Sweet Soul Music’ giving the crowd a sneak-peak at some sources of influence.
Just from listening to a few tracks off of ’59 Sound one can tell Gaslight does not limit themselves to one genre of influence- their sampling is in fact uniquely diverse as the state they hail from. The Bruce Springsteen parallel is rightly deserved, from Fallon’s raspy-soulful voice down to the lyrics for the working man (Were the things that we wanted when we were still sixteen/ Only passing and fleeting or just too far out of reach? Were you hard up or broken man? I woulda’ helped you out). But with a spattering of the New Jersey rebellious punk spirit that lives on in brother bands such as Against Me! (which TGA is going on tour with this year) and The Bouncing Souls.
And the band certainly does know their roots. “I have a fat sandwich named after me,” ‘Fat Benny’ Horowitz said, “I guess that makes us a true New Brunswick band!” Whether getting an obligatory sandwich solidifies a band’s stature or not, The Gaslight Anthem is well on their way to solidifying their place as another great New Jersey export with New Brunswick to thank.

I'll warn you beforehand that this picture isn't very pretty, so you'll have to click the link below to see it. It's of a dog who was thrown over an overpass on the Atlantic City Expressway. Obviously, tt's rather disturbing...

http://media.philly.com/images/on-jdog29.jpg

I use this image as another example of what's wrong with today's profiteering media.

While this picture of a lifeless puppy is naturally sad and downright disgusting, think for a second about the emotions it evokes:

Disgust. Anger. Contempt. Vengeance.

Keeping those emotions in mind, think about this: when the last time you saw a picture of a killed or wounded American soldier in Iraq?

Most likely, your answer is— never.

This is a key example of the media's priorities: a shot of an abused dog gets front page billing, while at the same time, you've probably haven't seen a single image of the thousands of wounded and killed soldiers during the entire five-year stretch of the Iraq war.

Those graphic images of death and destruction are downright painful to look at. But thus is war. Hiding the grim realities of combat behind family-friendly stories of heroism and sacrifice erode the purpose of news reporting.

Shameful.

Another Media Conundrum

That's a pretty interesting image from Pollster.com. According to their figures, Barack Obama will win the presidency without even breaking a sweat over battleground states like Florida and Ohio.

Yet, broadcast media seem to be unusually harsh towards Obama lately. Why?

Well, if you were a station manager looking to pull in big ratings from 2008 election coverage, would you want viewers to think that one candidate is comfortably ahead of another?

Of course not. Americans love drama. So, broadcast networks try to influence viewers' (and consequently, voters') perceptions of this 2008 race by putting Obama under an especially powerful microscope, in an effort to narrow his lead.

This is the equivalent of a referee calling a ridiculous pass interference call against a winning team in the final minutes of a football game. It allows the trailing team an opportunity to mount a comeback and make the game more exciting.

The funny thing is, all of these poll numbers and colored maps and broadcast media pundits have no direct relation to the true purpose of the 2008 election: for voters to independently choose the best candidate to lead the nation.

Yet, in an effort to grab big ratings and pull in huge advertising dollars for the upcoming sweeps period, networks have no problem skewing the race to favor chaos and controversy. Remember, these same networks are supposed to "serve the public interest."

Instead, networks serve their own interests (money) first; gladly providing disinformation to voters for a few Nielsen points.

So much for democracy. After all, it doesn't make for a very exciting television show.

O'Reilly Ambush

Fox News really needs to cool it with the ambush interviews. Credible news organizations do not have reporters hide behind a corner and disturb public figures while they're walking back from lunch hour.

It's one thing to ambush a public official like a Senator or agency head; they are expected to deal with criticism and scorn on a daily basis. Although ambush interviews in this context may not be the most desirable; they are at least consistent with some iota of journalistic ethos.

However, on tonight's show, O'Reilly's crew ambushed Syracuse University chancellor Nancy Cantor. Yes, while Cantor is somewhat of a public figure due to her status as the head of a major university, the content of the "ambush" was completely uncalled for.

Cantor was being questioned for racially insensitive remarks made by a professor at the university. Mind you, a lower-level professor in a small department, an person that Cantor would probably never directly interact with on purpose in her entire tenure as chancellor. Cantor responded with one line, "it was one man speaking for himself." Yet, the "reporter" kept prodding her with different variations of the same question. Again, Cantor responded with the same line, "it was one man speaking for himself."

Remember that one of the basic ideas of a university is to promote a free exchange of ideas. It's not Nancy Cantor's job to be the speech police. And, especially, it's not Fox's job to harass Cantor on her way to lunch break. Ambush interviews are nothing but cheap ratings spectacles.

Prediction for Tomorrow's WV Primary Coverage

Since Obama's cakewalk in North Carolina and Hillary's bare survival in Indiana, the media have written off Hillary and prematurely declared Obama the Democratic nominee.

That's until tomorrow night.

Yes, Hillary is expected to win West Virginia by abour 25 to 30 percentage points over Obama. Is it too little too late? Absolutely, if you're being rational and looking at the hard facts. However, chances are you don't have 6 hours of news time to fill until Larry King comes on at midnight.

So, be prepared for Chris Matthews to commend a "phenomenal" comeback by Hillary clinton, for Wolf Blitzer to report a "massive" win that puts her right back in the Democratic race alongside Barack, and for Brit Hume to discuss the potential for Hillary to sway a hoard of Superdelegates with her "amazing" win tomorrow night.

And, i'm sure MSNBC and CNN will whip out the cattle prod on all their commentators like Rachel Maddow, Pat Buchanan, David Gergen, and Jeffrey Toobin-- although I'm sure they know full well that the race is over and Obama has an insurmountable lead, they will still play the "what if" game. It's just what naturally happens when the phenonemon of groupthink and the misery of overblown cable news coverage combine.

After all, it's no fun giving Obama a coronation ceremony for 6 hours. Viewers are looking for drama, suspense, and action. And that's exactly what cable news will give them tomorrow night; even though the legend presented by the network talking heads couldn't be further from reality.

Cable Primary Coverage

Well, I have to say Daily Show nailed it on this one:



My thoughts exactly! As for other analysis of Tuesday night's primary coverage, let me rank the networks in order:

#1 MSNBC-- The only network who treats the primary elections as "presidentiaL", not a sporting event or a potential communist overthrow of American government. Their analysis from knowledgable and objective political reporters instead of annoying talking heads advocating for one candidate or the other made their coverage the most enlightening and entertaining to watch.

(By the way, while we're talking about MSNBC, ya gotta love Chris Matthews' new hair!...)



#2 CNN-- Well, CNN was just this side of bearable. I feel like CNN is trying to bring some young, powerful, fresh approach to political coverage, but it just doesn't work. Their election theme music consists of the same 3-second repetition of drums and cymbals over and over and over again. The screen is overloaded with cheesy graphics; the set is packed with too many charts and graphs to comprehend anything at all. Sometimes I feel like CNN is a math class rather than election coverage. Oh, and John King really needs to chill out with his magical map, a TV technological innovation that'll go down alongside the NHL on FOX glowing puck for useless and irritating technology.



#3 Fox News- Well, this one wasn't so hard. It was really depressing to watch Fox News. Their dreary, red, pulsating set makes you feel like you're watching a pending nuclear launch rather than incoming election results. While the other networks featured a broad range of commentators, from all walks of life, Fox News just used their own in-house stereotypical stuffy old white guys-- Hume, Rove, Hannity, Colmes, Smith-- to report. I felt like I was being punished for the 10 minutes I watched Fox's coverage. It was too much to bear.