"O'Connor Forecasts Dictatorship" -- why no press coverage?

[DeepModem Mom]

Slate: O'Connor Forecasts Dictatorship
Why didn't the American press chase the story?
By Jack Shafer
Posted Monday, March 13, 2006

The smoke drifting out of your computer over the weekend was not the result of a fried motherboard but the scent of bloggers setting themselves on fire in response to Nina Totenberg's NPR Morning Edition Friday, March 10, dispatch. Totenberg had attended a speech at Georgetown University given the night before by retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in which O'Connor invoked the word "dictatorship" to describe the direction the country may be headed if Republicans continue to attack the judiciary.

O'Connor's voice was "dripping with sarcasm," says Totenberg. But the retired justice didn't name Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, or Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, as the leading perps, in part because she didn't need to. (See Rawstory.com's transcription of Totenberg's NPR segment.)

Filled with fury, the bloggers wanted to know why the mainstream media—outside Keith Olbermann on MSNBC's Countdown—hadn't mentioned O'Connor's broadside. The only newspaper stories I could find on the topic today were from England's Guardian, with Julian Borger reporting and writer Jonathan Raban filing an opinion piece on it.

The bloggers were right, of course. A retired justice needn't predict the end of democracy to make news. All she has to do is burp. So, why didn't the U.S. press react more strongly to her comments?

Obviously, the media should have. The press has its excuses. It doesn't like to form a pack to chase somebody else's story—until it's damn good and ready. The press is also lazy about breaking news on Friday—and doubly lazy about picking up a radio story. Your average reporter (and average media) has better things to think about on Friday than work. But if you assume that the press gave the O'Connor story a bye because they're part of the Bush's royal court, you're wrong....

http://www.slate.com/id/2137961/


Or maybe not wrong???

[xultar]

1. Why no press coverage...DUH

Dictatorship!

[LynneSin]

2. Maybe because she helped to install it

:shrug:

[xultar]

3. No dead white girls. The media loves those stories.

[neuvocat]

8. Exactly.

She pissed and moaned about how she had to stay on the bench if Al Gore got elected. A higher education and a career in the Supreme Court both have been lost on her.

[LibDemAlways]

4. If O'Connor was a cute blond missing

college student she'd have received plenty of press coverage.

Anyone speaking out against the horrors of the Bush Crime Family (particularly one who helped install them and has apparently had some second thoughts) is not welcome on the corporate whore "news." Besides, if you asked Americans at random who Sandra Day O'Connor is, the majority would have no idea.

[otohara]

5. Of Course They Would Say "no official transcript"

because O'Connor wouldn't allow the speech to be taped.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

6. MSM would like to have...

...covered it, but there was another shark attack.

[Minnesota Libra]

7. Write to Cafferty, Montel Williams, Situation Room, include link and......

......ask why they aren't covering this. Are they effing blind or just too stupid to see it??:mad:

[DeepModem Mom]

9. Good idea! Here's the link to Calimary's DU media contact list --

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=106&topic_id=8816&mesg_id=8816