if you're interested in American democracy . . .

[realthog]

. . . and the media's contribution to its current unhealthy state, there's an article of relevance by Will Bunch at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/An_open_letter_to_Charlie_Gibson_and_George_Stephanapoulos.html . It starts: 

An open letter to Charlie Gibson and George Stephanapoulos

Dear Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos,

It's hard to know where to begin with this, less than an hour after you signed off from your Democratic presidential debate here in my hometown of Philadelphia, a televised train wreck that my friend and colleague Greg Mitchell has already called, quite accurately, "a shameful night for the U.S. media." It's hard because -- like many other Americans -- I am still angry at what I just witnessed, so angry that it's hard to even type accurately because my hands are shaking. Look, I know that "media criticism" -- especially when it's one journalist speaking to another -- tends to be a genteel, collegial thing, but there's no genteel way to say this.

Passed on to me by frostokovich -- to whom many thanks. Recommended reading.

LATER: There are further useful articles on the subject at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/17/AR2008041700013.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR and http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/guess-they-didnt-get-our-questions

Still Later: The publisher seems to have altered the URL to http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/An_open_letter_to_Charlie_Gibson_and_George_Stephanopoulos.html ; just before your conspiracy theorizing moves into high gear, it's a correction of the spelling of Stephanopoulos's name.

Comments

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

Imagine -- I didn't watch this, which I could have via my computer.

But sometime last week I disabled Flash and Java. I can't stand this garbage passing as a campaign, and campaign coverage in the primary media any longer.

You have no idea how empty all these newspaper sites and blogs are without video capacity.

My nerves are in a better state.

Sometimes you do need to tune out, at least certain areas needed to be tuned out / kill-filed.

I knew it was going to be awful, but not as awful as it actually was. This nation is a joke and not in a good or even comic way.

Love, C.

[sarcobatus.livejournal.com]

I have had the TV off and have not been following the news this past week, as I've had it up to here with media and madness. I'm with al zorra, that sometimes you have to tune out the insanity.

I'm so stressed out right now I've lost myself in writing, which helps enormously.

I think I've lost all hope for this country, for the world -- a terrible state to be in. But in all honesty, this is how I feel. And it has nothing to do with apathy or denial. I think it's grief.