I don’t have a column this week.
You see, I analyze and interpret the news, trying to find
something that others haven’t touched. When there’s lots of news, I have a
playground of riches. But during the past week, there were only two stories,
and every reporter, columnist, commentator, pundit, bloviator, and blogger
weighed in on it. There was nothing more I could add -- from any
perspective.
There was the Tiger Woods story. It led off the TV newscasts
and took page one newsprint for a couple of days, and then became a featured
story the rest of the week. One day, the breaking news about Tiger was that he
wasn’t wearing a seat belt.
But, there was also the story of the gatecrashers at the
White House state dinner. Everyone covered that story. When the pundits
finished blaming the Secret Service, they started on the White House staff,
somehow making it seem that President Obama himself was guilty of allowing homeland
security to deteriorate. Congress, always eager to take the spotlight away from
Hollywood celebrities, launched an investigation. Overlooked was that although
the gatecrashers did get into the State Dinner, they had gone through several
security checks, and the only hazard to the president was that he would have to
be in the same publicity shot as a bleached blonde.
Now, some may say that the addition of 30,000 troops in
Afghanistan is news. They may even claim that a recent report that concluded
the Bush-Cheney administration failed to provide requested ground troops to
capture a boxed-up bin Laden at the end of 2001 is news. They may claim that
neglecting Afghanistan while throwing 170,000 troops into Iraq forced President
Obama to beef up the forces in Afghanistan to finish the mission that was
supposed to have been finished years ago. But, that’s not news. It’s not even
worth commenting upon, especially when all the media resources were devoted to
the Tiger Slam and the Tareq and Michaele Salahi invasion.
And that leaves me nothing to say this week. Maybe next week
there may be news that 10,000 reporters, columnists, commentators, pundits,
bloviators, and bloggers won’t give saturation coverage to. I sure hope so. I
need the work.
Walter M. Brasch, an
award-winning former newspaper reporter and editor, is a syndicated social
issues columnist, author, writer-producer, and professor of journalism at
Bloomsburg University. His latest books are Sex and the Single Beer Can, a probing and humorous look at the
nation’s media; and Sinking the Ship
of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush, with a focus upon the
shredding of Constitutional protections. Both books are available at
amazon.com, and other bookstores. You may contact Dr. Brasch through his website,
www.walterbrasch.com.