{"id":11073,"date":"2007-06-09T12:00:01","date_gmt":"2007-06-09T16:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/11073.html"},"modified":"2007-06-09T12:00:01","modified_gmt":"2007-06-09T16:00:01","slug":"right-message-wrong-messenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/right-message-wrong-messenger\/","title":{"rendered":"Right message, wrong messenger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Take a wild guess who shared these words<\/a> of wisdom during a recent commencement address (via Jonathan Schwarz<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\n

“While it’s wonderful to have the world literally at our fingertips, the tsunami of information at our beck and call has the potential to drown us and actually make us less informed…. Surfing the web may be fast and fun, but sometimes pursuing knowledge requires you to go in the deep end — and not just dip your toe in the shallow water. […]<\/p>\n

“The proliferation of celebrity magazines makes Lindsey Lohan’s latest stint in rehab seem more important than what’s happening in Darfur.<\/p>\n

The kind of fluff that accosts us on the newsstand may seem like harmless fun, but it should also come with a warning label that says it can rot your mind and distort your values.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The words of Al Gore? Bill Moyers? Eric Alterman?<\/p>\n

Try Katie Couric, anchor of the CBS Evening News, who would appear to have some power over how the mind-rotting fluff is reported to a national audience.
\n
\nI have to say, Couric’s remarks at Williams College last week sound encouraging, but they would be far less breathtaking if they matched her journalism. On Thursday night, the CBS Evening News’ top story was Bush and Putin discussing missile defense, to which the network devoted two minutes and 35 seconds. The next longest item was Paris Hilton’s release from jail, which garnered two minutes and 25 seconds. <\/p>\n

During the half-hour broadcast, the Paris Hilton “news” got more coverage on CBS than a roadside bomb killing a U.S. soldier, the immigration legislation, and passage of the stem-cell bill combined<\/i> — times two<\/i><\/b>.<\/p>\n

Please tell us again, Katie, about how the media exaggerates the significance of celebrity nonsense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Take a wild guess who shared these words of wisdom during a recent commencement address (via Jonathan Schwarz): “While it’s wonderful to have the world literally at our fingertips, the tsunami of information at our beck and call has the potential to drown us and actually make us less informed…. Surfing the web may be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}