Credible News?

November 8, 2010, and today will be the final day that Keith Olbermann, a liberal news show host, will be taken off the air. What did he do? He contributed $7,000 to campaigns which is against nbc’s policy. Their punishment is feeble, he’s taken off the air for a mere 2 shows and that’s it after press releases stating he was on leave ‘indefinitely’.

I actually don’t much care about any of this except that I can assume that Keith Olbermann read his contract and was aware of the policy he was breaking. We can then preclude that he was cognitively breaking policy and he gets a small tap on the wrist.

My issue is with NBC for making such a riot out of the issue, taking over twitter, NPR and all for naught. I’m just irritated that they have no follow through. I have higher expectations for news and that is just one of the many reasons why Comedy Central has a better news source than syndicate news channels.

Speaking of Comedy Central, here is a quote from John Stewart’s closing speech from “The Rally to Restore Sanity”:
If we amplify everything we hear nothing. There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers or real bigots and Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate--just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe not more. The press is our immune system. If we overreact to everything we actually get sicker--and perhaps eczema.
And yet, with that being said, I feel good—strangely, calmly good. Because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us through a fun house mirror, and not the good kind that makes you look slim in the waist and maybe taller, but the kind where you have a giant forehead and an ass shaped like a month old pumpkin and one eyeball.
The point is he gets it and is calling out the pundits and press, with our obsession on a telecratic movement driven by the media, we miss what is really important. In the real world Stewart explained that we all have to work together because life in the real world is not the same as Cable TV or D.C., we are all working to make ends meet and so we do and we work together.

So why do we, as people, continue to demand to be divided and compartmentalized and streamlined. People have never been one size fits all, we all bring different benefits to the table, we have different opinions, and experiences that affect those opinions, but as soon as we lose respect for each other as people we really lose it all.

A friend who I once thought was quite smart was talking to me about the ending of a book in which he so blatantly missed the entire point. Ever since I’ve been confused because I can’t wrap my head around missing that point, as depressing and soul sucking as it was, and the person turned it around to show it as a happier ending. My Derridas love can’t refute the person’s reading, however, it does ask me if that person reread that text now, if they would still have that opinion or if the age at which it was read made the person unable to fully grasp the ending.

Same friend has pelted my e-mail with numerous requests to join groups with values and beliefs that I don’t hold. And I, as a person, do not know what I have done to mislead someone to believe I felt allegiance towards that ideology. On the other hand if I do talk to the person, I’m quite sure they will slander me for not thinking the same as them and trample me with snide insults.

My point is, extreme’s in any situation are bad, extreme cable style politics, weather, hobbies, eating, sleeping, exercising etc,. Extreme’s in our lives divide us from demographics and make us unable to really communicate or listen.

There are so few people who can be in the middle and see reason and logic to both side without letting emotion affect our opinions and make us biased. Being a moderate makes it easier to entertain both sides ideas and then refute them if need be. All sides have faults, the republicans, the libertarians (tea party) and now the constitution party, none of them is just right all the time. They all have points but their way of getting things done and their affects are all pretty scary.

But syndicate news channel’s seem to demand this and I feel that if they cannot keep their anchors in line with their policies, how can they have credibility in reporting the news to any of us?

Also, read more of John Stewart's closing speech here.