from NY to Israel Sultan Reveals
The Stories Behind the News

Stupid is as Stupid Does

Posted: 21 Mar 2009 07:44 PM PDT

Who decides who's smart anyway? Apparently the media does. The

same media decided that Obama, who can only speak from a

teleprompter, was a genius, and Sarah Palin, was a dunce. The same

media decided that Bush was a moron, and Al Gore, who recently

informed us that the pole would be gone in 5 years, was and is a
misunderstood prophet of our time.

This power of the press to anoint some as geniuses and others as fools,

would be slightly more credibile if the media itself didn't constantly

show off its own stupidity for all to see.

It's only natural that many anchormen would confuse Obama's
ability to get fashionably dressed and read stuff off a teleprompter,

with intelligence. After all it's pretty much what they do for a living.

And embracing deficit spending is natural enough for news

corporations like the New York Times, which were busy spending

themselves into bankruptcy. No wonder the Times loves the idea

of "shovel ready" infrastructure projects, having built a white
elephant of a headquarters that they're now being forced to
unload on anyone who will take it.

You can't expect media organizations which match Obama's
worst habits to criticize his own faults, which are after all their

own faults as well. The problem of course is that the New York
Times can declare bankruptcy and sell its headquarters, but who

exactly can the United States sell its infrastructure too?

Thanks to the endless parade of bailouts, bad corporate behavior

has now morphed into bad government policy, and Obama's national

socialism allows him to promote the worst in both capitalism and

socialism. But corporations can go bankrupt, America can't.

The media that refused to question the same bad Wall Street
behavior that they're now busy condemning, still doesn't have a clue.

Not even when it comes to their own future.

Network newscast viewership is down. Major newspapers are
folding, others are scrambling to avoid oblivion. Online

viewership and ad revenues are not compensating for
the losses in circulation. The writing isn't on the front page

anymore, it's on the wall. And what it all means is that the

"smartest people in the room" can't even save their own

medium, but continue to presume that they're smarter
than the rest of us, and can tell us how to save America.

The media hydra's manifold pundits and editorial writers, talking

heads, anchormen and assorted smug know-it-alls, insist that

they have all the answers for us-- but as it turns out they don't

even have the answers for themselves.

Ask a New York Times columnist on what America needs to

do in foreign policy, economic policy, national health care or just

about anything, and he'll be happy to give you a detailed answer.

Ask him what the major print media papers need to do to survive

another decade, and you're likely to get a frustrated glare and

some mumbled comments about the importance of the internet.

In the 20th century, the fourth estate became a serious

proposition booming their message across a collection of mediums,

radio, newspapers and television. Their paternalistic and later

matriarchal voices told Americans what was best for
them, which by the latter half of the 20th century, was

inevitably what liberals felt was best. It was less Father Knows

Best, than Anchorman Knows Best.

Obama is at once their great triumph and their failure. His careful

management and control of the press is a reminder that the

revolution eats its own, and that a tyrant is most paranoid about

those who helped him reach power.

The 2008 election may be the last time that anyone seriously
listens to the press anymore. With major newspapers going out

of business or switching to online only editions, the twilight of

the press is here. The picture isn't that much better for

network news.

CBS's Katie Couric gamble blew up in their faces, a gamble

symptomatic of a once prestigious newscast desperate to

salvage something from the looming spectre of its own irrelevance.

As network news viewership falls and age demographics rise,

CBS, NBC and ABC newscasts are to be marked by the same

tombstones currently rising over major newspapers.
And newsmagazines aren't far behind either. Especially

since Time Warner continues to be in big trouble.

When 2012 rolls around, it's unclear how many of the present

day media mega-corporations will even be around. Stupid is

as stupid does, and the same media giants which helped

bring down America into this disaster, will at the very
least achieve some measure of justice by pulling themselves