Dear Lord, We Have Seven More Months of This?

I remember several years ago when there was great consolidation of media outlets into the hands of just a few large corporations that there were great concerns voiced by many about the resulting threat to journalistic objectivity. These warnings were largely ignored.

Next, there was the combining of news divisions with entertainment divisions within these large corporations. There were many saying that hard news would be tossed aside for sensationalistic "if it bleeds, it leads" tabloid style journalism. Again, ignored.

Shortly thereafter came the rise of the cable news stations and the 24-hour news cycle which took the earlier developments and put them on steroids and combining the sensationalism and profit motive with political editorials disguising themselves as news.

Put all of these together and you have the 2012 election in a nutshell. It seems that most of the "news" organizations would rather gin up controversy, looking for ratings rather than the truth. They end up treating the campaign more like a reality show than a serious event resulting in the choice of a person who is arguably more powerful than any other human on earth.

In the last weeks, we've seen several examples of this. Two in particular stick out - the Romney etch-a- sketch comment and the Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life comment. Both of these were essentially non-events. Both were throw away comments, one by an advisor to Mitt Romney about the truth that every candidate has to change their positions between the primary and general elections and the other making a point about how out of touch somebody with a couple of Cadillacs, a few mansions, and an elevator for her car is with the average American woman.

But in our über-sensationalist, infotainment news industry, these become what passes for serious news taking up hours of our daily coverage while anything discussing serious issues is thrown aside.

Combine the need for ratings with the unbelievable laziness of the modern television journalist and the presentation gets even worse. During my recent battle with my own digestive system, I spent the intermittent conscious moments of my day watching various news programs. Needless to say, I was less than impressed with the quality of the information put forth as newsworthy or even as fact.

One such report was of the "study" released last week stating that the President's health care law would add hundreds of millions of dollars to the deficit. This was reported as if it was an independent non-partisan government report. The graphic showing the amount of the increase listed the author's name. Since I had nothing better to do than lay in bed and run to the bathroom, I did a quick search of the individual. Within 5 minutes I was able to see that far from being objective this was a report put out by a think-tank funded by the Koch brothers and the study was for lack of a more apt term, a lie. But millions of viewers of ABC News think that Obamacare is going to add hundreds of millions of dollars to the deficit because the news said so and apparently there was no one in the news division willing to take the 5 minutes that I did to figure this out.

Then there is the arrest of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin. It amazed me how the shooting of an unarmed black teen could become such a raging controversy where we were actually having debates across our television dials over whether the unarmed black teen should have been shot to death. Seriously.

I was hoping that once the arrest was made that some of the sensationalism of the story would die down. Boy was I wrong. The morning after the arrest, all of the mainstream media outlets were showing George Zimmermann's receipt from the jail's commissary, including commentary on the size of his underwear (large) and his favorite snack food (Fritos). Apparently there were no adults in charge who were there to inform the networks that this was not news and was in fact trivializing an unimaginable tragedy wherein a young man's life was senselessly cut short.

So, we have seven more months of this kind of tawdry, embarrassing, scandal making coverage to go before we elect a President. Combine this with the billions of dollars of super PAC ads, all of which will make Himalayas out of the mole hills of differences between the major party candidates and I think we may end up with an electorate even more fed up with our political process than we have now. Yes, that may in fact be possible.

So, I think I may just take the rest of the campaign off. I'd simply rather read a book, or play with my daughter, or watch Syracuse sports, or a million other things than watch ginned up controversies between the campaigns of two well heeled conservatives vying to see who can better help Wall Street bankers get richer, trample on our fundamental rights, and bomb the hell out of this week's newest enemy of the state. Why do I care? Hell, why do any of us?