No one (except the Marketing Department at CNN) ever said that Rick Sanchez was the brightest bulb in the marquee and I have to go with the majority on that. I did, however, find Rick interesting and well... you remember those wind-up toys you had when you were small? You would turn the key and then they would go until they bashed into a wall - over and over and over again. Rick was like that. On one topic he would be asking piercing, passionate questions and on the next I would be thumping at the television and thinking, "I could be doing a better interview and I'm a RABBIT!!!" Still, I don't think the recent meltdown was all Rick's fault. Okay, I can hear you screeching already and yes, biting the hand that feeds you, never a good plan, however, it's not my actual point. Walter Cronkite could not have survived the 24-hour news cycle. Mission control, we have a problem.
I'm not done with you yet. Hop below the fold.
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My name is Arliss and I'm a rabbit. Get over it. I've been blogging for some time over at Wordpress but am moving here because I am ferociously political, very opinionated and no dumb bunny. If you want to know more about me, see my bio at the bottom of this diary post. If not, well...thump!
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Let me get the "Jewish" thing out of the way first. To begin with, as firmly established in my previous blogs at Wrodpress (the most pertinent of which will, since this is my first week posting in the Kos-verse, be cross-posted to my Daily Kos Diary over the next few days) I am a Muslim, Kenyan, anti-colonialist rabbit. Rick Sanchez is a Cuban-American human. I'm pretty sure Rick can't relate to the way I was raised unless there was a litterbox in the corner of his office that never made it into all those backstage photos he posted on Twitter. But I suspect I didn't hear what you heard when you listened to Rick's rant. I, of course, heard him being a bigoted idiot but more importantly, I heard him being hurt. Here's the thing - either we accept our news anchors as humans or we don't. Walter Cronkite wasn't human. Most of the time he was Superman. Still, some of the strongest memories most people have about Cronkite were those few times when his humanity slipped to the fore for just the smallest of moments - the assassination of President Kennedy or Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon. Those of you who were alive then, including my transcriber, remember those glimpses because you all thought, "Wow, I feel that way too."
Today, we live in a world where the news is a salty-twisted pretzel of personality with a little, and I do mean little, factual information thrown in around the edges. I don't even have to talk about FOX News or Nancy Grace. Those are glaring examples. I mean Anderson Cooper in that yummy t-shirt... ... .... my point is, personality is everywhere embedded into the so-called news. It's worse than a burr in fur.
Which brings us back to Rick who, being just a tad more dynamic than he is quick, talked himself into exposing something he probably never wanted any of us to see. All of us, I guarantee you, ALL of us feel we are in some way "other." The more obvious the otherness is, the more likely it is that during the most impressionable years of our lives, some bully picked on us. It left a mark. Really it did. (You computer geeks grok me, right?) I, personally, still don't like football. It's been years but it remains very real to me. There I was, in my own home, hopping around minding my own business. I was having fun because it was a party and there were chip crumbs all over the floor. Football players were there and so, of course, was beer. I still can't really talk about it but suffice to say that it took days, days, to get all that sticky beer out of my fur. They laughed. I didn't. It's pretty clear to me that something not too unlike this happened to Rick which, when combined with a bad day having just lost his 8PM slot, the uncertainty that comes of new management and the sting of the, albeit terribly funny, remarks from comedian Jon Stewart, took Rick back to an especially sore place at precisely the same time as he opened his mouth. On the radio.
I'm not saying he was smart or right or justified or not bigoted. I'm saying that we get what we ask for. As a public, we have demanded personality over content then, when suddenly we get just that, we freak out. IMHO I would be good, when Rick comes back on MSNBC or wherever he lands, with him coming on and saying, "Hey, this happened to me when I was nine. It screwed me up. I didn't realize how much until I got stupid on the radio. I apologize and I am getting counseling. And to Jon Stewart, really, buddy, picking on me is the best you can do? Have you seen Nancy Grace?"
I'm also pretty sure that the 24-hour news cycle is easily the worst thing to ever happen to news. It sounded like such a good idea but it turns out that it's just like eating too much fruit. When everything is coming out that fast, it can't be good. (I don't know if you have ever had blueberry tail. I have blogged about it and it is one of the blogs I won't be cross-posting to the Kos so if, for some deeply personal reason you would like to read more about it, go here.)
What happens with the 24-hour news cycle is that we get two things: an extreme effort to take a few stories and morph them into something sensational thereby making a living on those and news anchors who are not fully briefed on the topics of the day because they do not have the staff or the time. Oh - and the networks that don't run 24-hour news feel compelled to compete with the sensational stories selected by their dedicated brethren, bunny see, bunny do.
Sensationalism is literally killing us, well you, actually, because, let's face it veterinarians are a whole different deal. One of the reasons the public doesn't know more about the Obama health care plan is because it is complicated and spending the time it takes to explain it is neither interesting nor sexy. The problem is, if the public understood it, they would be supporting it, en masse. So - something on the order of 45,000 Americans die a year for lack of sufficient health care. But ask yourself this, if Rick Sanchez HAD decided to do nothing but explain health care until it was so clear that even Sarah Palin could understand it, would CNN have let him? Would ratings have supported him? Umm - no and no. Period.
Walter Cronkite had a staff, a good one. He was in a position to make sure that they made sure that he always had all the information he needed when he was on air. Also, his network selected him not because he was camera friendly or focused well with women ages 24 to 35 or put up strong numbers in the demo. The network chose him because he was skilled, erudite and conscientious and Americans listened to him because that was what was valued in a news anchor at that time. Not so much anymore. (Rabbits, on the other paw, continue to be a fairly serious group and we get our news from bundergound radio. What? You thought the rabbit ears were decorative?) But Americans don't value education and intelligence anymore, at least the Republican Party is counting on that being the case. People want to be entertained... by the NEWS. Here's the thing:
entertainment |ˌentərˈtānmənt|
noun
the action of providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment : everyone just sits in front of the TV for entertainment.
• an event, performance, or activity designed to entertain others : a theatrical entertainment.
news |n(y)oōz|
noun
newly received or noteworthy information, esp. about recent or important events : I've got some good news for you.
• ( the news) a broadcast or published report of news : he was back in the news again.
• ( news to) informal information not previously known to someone : this was hardly news to her.
• a person or thing considered interesting enough to be reported in the news : Chanel became the hottest news in fashion.
[Thanks to my Apple "Dictionary" software for the above definitions.]
You see my point. "Entertainment" and "news" aren't the same thing at all - but we want them to be. Some of the hot mess that is currently considered news programming is, then, our fault. Oh, we can whine about the power of the huge media conglomerates - and we do aaaannnndddd we will, but millions of us are tuning in to some of the worst excuses for news imaginable. If we stopped, the networks would rethink. Folks, if we put up the numbers for PBS-style news, believe you-me, we would have it.
Which takes me back to Rick because, as I said at the beginning of this diatribe, he was interesting. Rick was a creative and, okay, possibly quite an egotistical, guy scrapping for a way to get more airtime and either he or someone on his team came up with the idea of tying Twitter and Facebook tightly into his newscast. The idea took off. All kinds of people would tweet in, including some of the newsmakers themselves. Rick brought texture to his, originally, half-hour that others didn't have. It was later incorporated by many but Rick was right there at the start so, for that, he deserves some carrots. Obviously, I wouldn't want all my news to be a filter for "Jeb in Minnesota" but every so often Jeb has something to say that causes be to think. And I like that. Besides, if there is going to be news twenty-four hours a day, someone better be willing to personally test a taser, if for no better reason than for my personal enjoyment.
Arliss Bio: I am a 10 year old lop rabbit who graduated from the University of New All-Bunny with a degree in Disapproval. Though I had already garnered fame by my selection for the Disapproving Rabbits website, I did not begin blogging and tweeting (arlissbunny) until I was relegated, by my staff, to live just to the right of the Middle of Nowhere (southeastern Indiana, or IN-09 to all of you) for an entire year. While said staff is rudely frolicking in Ireland without me I have become significantly more media savvy. I've also decided that holding my tongue about the insanity of human politics is a thing of the past. I have generously opted to allow my temporary staff to post comments as herself but all blogs will be from me. I'm the brains of the operation.