Posted on 24-11-2003
George
Loves Michael
By William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Perspective,
21 November 2003
A number of explosions tore through the British consulate
in Turkey today, killing scores of people. George W. Bush is
in England, surrounded on all sides by enraged British citizens
whose massive protests have required nearly every police officer
in London to be put on the line of defense.
This is happening in a nation that has been, both in
government and among the populace, one of the strongest allies
America has ever known. There are a couple of wars happening
in Iraq and Afghanistan, neither of which are going very well.
A great many soldiers and civilians have died in the last year.
Osama bin Laden is still on the loose, and after nearly 750
days, the American people have still been given no explanation
for why September 11 happened.
It is 3:16 p.m. on Thursday afternoon as I write this.
CNN has been covering, with total exclusivity, a parking lot
outside a police station for the last hour. They covered an
airplane landing. They covered the same airplane sitting still
on the tarmac. They covered the airplane slowly moving into
a hangar. All the while, talking head after talking head explored
every conceivable facet of the parking lot, the plane, the tarmac,
and the hangar, as well as a variety of parallel issues. No
stone of data was left unturned.
Why? Michael Jackson is about to surrender to police.
In the last two years, CNN has not devoted this much
energy and coverage to any story in the manner that is unfolding
right now. Enron, the stock market, the reasons for September
11, the nomination of Henry Kissinger to chair the investigation
into that event, the disinformation that was pushed by the Bush
administration before the attack on Iraq, the civilian casualties
during the attack on Iraq, the American troop casualties during
and after the attack on Iraq, the missing weapons of mass destruction,
the missing Osama bin Laden, the war in Afghanistan that is
far from over, the outing of a CIA agent by the Bush administration
in an act of political revenge, and about two hundred other
explosive stories did not get the attention that Michael Jackson
is getting now.
One talking head just said, "I'm waiting for a white
Bronco to pull up."
The other talking heads laughed and kept on going. A
detailed discussion progressed about the tail numbers on Michael
Jackson's plane, along with questions about how all this will
affect Jackson's fans. We're approaching the two-hour mark in
the coverage.
For a while we had the Petersons to obsess the mainstream
television media. Then we had Kobe Bryant, and for a bit both
stories ran concurrently with 'Breaking News' announcements
throughout daily coverage. Neither managed to seize national
attention, and so periodically CNN and the other networks were
forced to mention that the fighting in Iraq is getting a lot
of Americans killed, the promised weapons of mass destruction
have not been found, and no one but Dick Cheney can say that
Iraq was involved in September 11 without looking like a total
blithering idiot.
And then, like a surgically enhanced cavalry charge,
Michael Jackson blasts to the forefront to rescue the mainstream
media from perhaps being required to cover matters of substance.
The ability for these talking heads to natter on for weeks and
weeks about Jackson, previous charges against him, his musical
history, his personal oddities, his baby-dangling antics, and
"Oh my goodness, what do we tell the children?" is
pretty much bottomless, but we will spend the next several weeks,
again, racing to that bottom as quickly as television signals
can travel through a coaxial cable.
A black Bronco just left the airplane hangar, and is
driving slowly, slowly to the police station. CNN is on it.
CNN is all over it.
One of the shots on my television an hour ago showed
a gaggle of reporters and cameras gathered outside the police
station, waiting for Jackson to arrive. The talking head working
the microphone at that moment mistakenly called those people
"journalists." This is not journalism, and those people
are not journalists. This is entertainment television passed
off as news of import. This is more poison poured into our national
discussion. This is the grand bull moose gold medal winning
distraction of all time.
George W. Bush should send Michael Jackson flowers and
a thank-you note, and send more flowers to CNN. The Republican
Party effected an historic takeover of Congress in 1994, during
a time when the only television coverage one could find focused
on OJ Simpson. The timing was exquisite.
We're right back, today, to that marvelous chapter in American
journalism history.
TV news viewers who think they are getting the hard truth
from the mainstream media just forgot Bush exists, forgot the
hundreds of thousands of protesters who have dogged his state
visit to Britain, forgot the attacks in Iraq, forgot the dead
soldiers, forgot September 11, forgot everything except a mutant
in a Bronco who lives in a place called Neverland.
They just showed Jackson in handcuffs. The talking heads
almost fainted. God bless America.
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