Wake Up Call

I've seen a couple editorials that have left me hopeful today, for the first time in a while.

The first is from the right-leaning Chicago Tribune, of all places, from Bob Dole's old press secretary Douglas MacKinnon, of all people. But he's dead-on about taking cable news to task for the seemingly non-stop "missing pretty white woman" parade we've seen lately:

Note to the news media--with an emphasis on the cable networks: Enough is enough.

Your continual focus on, and reporting of, missing, young, attractive white women not only demeans your profession but is a televised slap in the face to minority mothers and parents the nation over who search for their own missing children with little or no assistance or notice from anyone.

The latest missing woman to dominate the airtime of the cable networks was Jennifer Wilbanks, from Duluth, Ga. Like Dru Sjodin, Chandra Levy and Elizabeth Smart all before her, Wilbanks is young, white and attractive. Wilbanks, as it turned out, ran away of her own volition from her impending marriage. As a Maryland police official told me after Wilbanks turned up in New Mexico, "the media's non-stop focus on the possible abduction of Wilbanks forced the local officials and police departments to spend thousands of dollars they would not otherwise have spent."

Define racism. One could certainly make the argument that the cable networks that continually focus on these missing white women, to the virtual exclusion of minority women, are practicing a form of racism. The racism in this case, however, while predicated on color, does not concern itself with the color of one's skin. Rather, it is based on the color of money, ratings points and competition. Would an African-American woman who went missing days before her wedding receive the same (or any) coverage as that of Wilbanks? Not likely.

Wow. Somebody had the balls to say it. The truth is that it's easy, cheap, sensationalistic television which generates ratings (which to the executives is the best kind, for many reasons). The other truth is that we've been subjected to this in the media long before cable news' prominence (anyone remember Baby Jessica? The Lindbergh baby?). But calling it what it is - shameless, demeaning, and racist - takes some guts.

It also takes guts to come out and speak truth to power about our forgotten election. You know, the one where the exit polls didn't match the final results? For the first time in history? It's sickening that practically the first figure in the mainstream media to raise a red flag about this is a sportscaster, Jim Lampley. And he did it on a blog, the brand-spanking-new Huffington Post:

At 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on Election Day, I checked the sportsbook odds in Las Vegas and via the offshore bookmakers to see the odds as of that moment on the Presidential election. John Kerry was a two-to-one favorite. You can look it up.

People who have lived in the sports world as I have, bettors in particular, have a feel for what I am about to say about this: these people are extremely scientific in their assessments. These people understand which information to trust and which indicators to consult in determining where to place a dividing line to influence bets, and they are not in the business of being completely wrong. Oddsmakers consulted exit polling and knew what it meant and acknowledged in their oddsmaking at that moment that John Kerry was winning the election.

And he most certainly was, at least if the votes had been fairly and legally counted. What happened instead was the biggest crime in the history of the nation, and the collective media silence which has followed is the greatest fourth-estate failure ever on our soil.

Go read the whole thing.

I know we veterans of the blogosphere aren't supposed to like the Huffington Post, because it smacks of elitism, where a bunch of old-media types and celebrities come in and show the new-media types who's boss. But if people like Lampley are going to feel this unconstrained to speak their minds, I'm all for it.