Interesting exchange on MSNBC a few minutes ago

[EarlG]

Norah O'Donnell had been discussing the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner, the annual event where politicians and reporters go to suck each other's toes. After the break she handed coverage over to Chris Jansing, and the following exchange took place.

NORAH: Chris, it was great to see you here in Washington last night.

CHRIS: It was great to be there! Did you have fun?

NORAH: I did, I had a good time! How about you?

CHRIS: We were the two party poopers, the main dinner ends, the two of us go home, everyone else stays until who knows what hour. Right?

NORAH: Exactly, but I've already gotten the scoop on some of those that stayed out late, it sounds like they had a lot of fun.

CHRIS: Really? Can you call me later because I haven't heard a thing.

NORAH: I will call you later, yeah.

CHRIS: Okay, alright. Well thank you Norah.

Now, obviously this was a jokey exchange, but it made me cringe. Why is one reporter telling another that she'll call her privately later to give her the "scoop." Am I not watching a "news" channel? Aren't the reporters supposed to be giving ME the scoop?

Of course I understand it was a bit of lighthearted fun, an amusing way for one anchor to hand over coverage to the next anchor. But I guess I'm one of these people who think that the press should be, oh, I dunno, giving us the facts about the activities of our elected officials so that we can make better-informed decisions about our government. Ha ha! How foolish of me.

These schmoozy events featuring reporters who think that "access" is more important than reporting the whole truth, are one thing. Watching these same reporters rubbing it it in - even in a jokey way - is just plain irritating.

[Missy Vixen]

1. Very interesting

After all, the great unwashed public doesn't need to know what happened, do they?

LOL
Julie

[brentspeak]

2. As far they're concerned, this is their world; the rest of us just live in it.

[underpants]

4. "Everyone in Washington knew they were going to war"

I don't remember where I read that first but I have read it on more than time from different sources. They don't seem to realize that what is going on there really effects lives. It is all one big joke until the next cocktail party starts. I know everyone likes to have fun but if you want to do that go find other work that doesn't directly disturb lives.

[TahitiNut]

10. Power is an aphrodesiac. Nowhere is it more apparent than in D.C.

It's an addiction for these people.

[peacetalksforall]

13. ...and get in their way especially when we protest. But, they do

a pretty good job of kicking us into submission. Is anyone going to be talking much when/if gas gets to $3.50 this summer?

[snappyturtle]

3. I don't think this conversation should be on the air.

Maybe I'm getting crotchity but..........number one, I don't care if they had a good time or not. I think the whole event should scare the daylights out of us. The press and politicians socializing in such a way, kissing up to one another, just smacks of ???????? I can't think of the right word but it doesn't give me comfort seeing them all so "close".

[goforit]

5. Chris and Norah having a fling? Secrets under the sheets?

[TahitiNut]

6. They're just, just, just ... THRILLLLED ... to be part of the "king's court"! "Insiders".

"Look at us, you people in the cheap seats! We're INSIDERS!!"

Simper and twaddle. The fucking narcissism is appalling. I've seen too much of this behavior in my life at various 'insider' political gatherings. The pheromones in the air at such gatherings is like pea soup ... so thick it feels like drowning.

It's all about make-up, libido, fashion, libido, power, libido, strutting, libido, big hair, libido ... some of the most vacuous, brain-dead people I've EVER been around. And that's in the 'open houses' in neighborhoods of multi-million-dollar homes. Appalling.

When I was a corporate droid, I had to spend far too much time in D.C. and NYC at 'big shot' gatherings. The 'disco cucumber' is NOTHING compared to that stuff.

[peacetalksforall]

14. court insiders = court jesters - with tights, caps with bells, flutes,

and some neat acrobatic tricks - smearing, snotty, but more funny than these 'wanna-bees'.

[gratuitous]

17. Neener, neener!

"None of you great unwashed were invited, and we're not gonna tell you what happened. But it was super cool and you missed it! Neener, neener, neener."

Yeah, the subtext isn't all that hard to divine, and whether this was scripted or ad-libbed, it provides an unmistakable window on the mentality of the press cohort.

[Tunkamerica]

7. It's called ad-libbing and I'm sure these 24 hour news channels

do it constantly. Half-hour local news does it to pad out a segment, I'm sure that's what they were doing. Some people are good at it and some aren't but I wouldn't ascribe any deep psychological meanings to it, the director probably just told them they have to fill thirty seconds.

[EFerrari]

16. Yet the way they filled those seconds is revealing.

You don't have to dig very deep or to ascribe obscure motives to an attitude that is plainly on the surface.

[BurtWorm]

8. That is infuriating for exactly the reasons you cite

Why dangle shit like that in front of the audience if not to puff yourself up by witholding it?

What degraded media we have. :cry:

[Jacobin]

9. Reminds me of how I feel when during a lunch break in a trial

the lawyers on the other side go for a long lunch with the judge hearing the case.

It's not appropriate and at the very least leads to the appearance of impropriety.

[KT2000]

11. They revealed their sense

of superiority to the audience.
They also revealed their clubbiness with the politicians.
They are discussing their high school clique and the audience is not part of it.
This is the true state of MSM.

[glitch]

28. In kids, expecting all the world (at least their pathetic audience) to be jealous. nt

[dweller]

12. but weren't you entertained by the exchange ?

after all, the news is just entertainment now, with more time spent yukking it up between the 'talking heads' each trying to outdo the other with some witty quip, then is spent on reporting 'news'.

it sickens me that what was once reporting facts has now become the media's game of keeping the masses in a muddle, smiling along all the way.

dp

[EFerrari]

15. Even creepier is the publicly announced exclusion of their audience

when their purported mission is to inform.

I can't watch these people and thanks to the net (and to you guys) I don't have to.

:toast:

[City Lights]

18. Ooooo...they just said Tucker sported his bow tie again last night.

:eyes:

That new JibJab video is quite timely...

[lectrobyte]

19. Howard Beale said it best:

Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation; this tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers; this tube is the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people, and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA, the Communications Corporation of America; there's a new chairman of the board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the twentieth floor. And when the 12th largest company in the world controls the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network?

[rec_report]

20. Good point. I don't mind a little banter once in a while, but yes -

the anchors should be giving *us* the scoop!
-Polar Bear

[truedelphi]

21. The local media constantly dangles things

Here in California they will air a brief "news update"in which they announce that a Chicago suburb was hit by a tornado.

In the old days, such a news update would hold to the classic "who what when where how and why"

But that is now considered so passe that often it is hard, even if shelling out for a newspaper, to determine where the target spot for the airplane crash, the tornado etc.

That is why I get 93% of my news on the internet. Tornado in Chicago - I get on the Chciago Tribune website.

Air Crash in Minneapolis - I start to type in the URL for the Star.

I want the facts and now and not as a "dangle" to make me stay glued to a tube for six hours

[Richard Steele]

22. Yes. It's not the banter, it's the MINDSET the banter reveals. recommended

[geiger]

23. It was the worst Correspondents Association dinner I have viewed.

They should just put a placard at the door "Whores Only Need Attend."

[Supersedeas]

24. that amounts to substance to the pathetic Yellow Tweety and Whorah

[blm]

25. Mount an activism effort to get Dem congress to call the newsmedia to count.

You know you'll have a few hundred of us here contributing to that cause.

[Stinky The Clown]

30. You betcha!

In my view, the media is our BIGGEST single problem.

[Stinky The Clown]

26. Noron ... a stone in the shoe of journalism

[mitchum]

27. Just two jerks in the Beltway circle jerk

I piss in their cocktails

[Catherine Vincent]

29. That wasn't professional to me.

They sounded like gossips.

[Gelliebeans]

31. and this is the same media

that has a hard time understanding why the public doesn't believe them anymore...they don't even take their jobs seriously so how can we take them seriously?