Media Astonished No Controversy on Obama's Back to School Speech

All over the Internet this morning, you'll find an astonished media claiming that there is no outrage and controversy this year for Obama's back-to-school speech that will take place at 1 pm eastern:

"Last year everything was a big deal. It was a new president, it was a new era. It was a new and changed everything and so, you had all these initiatives and fresh ideas and everyone got excited and now it's a year later. We've slogged through a recession and health care and continuing wars and it's harder for things to break through the clutter," says Tobe Berkovitz an Associate Professor at Boston University's College of Communication. Fox

and at MSNBC:

Domenico Montanaro writes: One of the more frustrating things about covering politics is when stories most reasonable observers and journalists view as unreasonable, irrational, or not that newsworthy seem to take on a life of their own.
One such story was a year ago, when there was a partisan uproar over President Obama's planned address to schoolchildren.
As proof of what a silly story it was, of how phony it was, here we are a year later -- with the president and Democrats in even worse shape than they were a year ago -- and there's nary a peep about Obama's second address to schoolchildren to take place today at 1:00 pm ET in Philadelphia.

Why no controversy? Because the media didn't fan the flames this year. The media didn't buy into the lunacy this year. The lunatics are still out there raging against his speech.

What's different this year is the media recently boosted a lunatic to national prominence, and they're probably smarting over that reality. One would hope, anyway. But what probably happened is with a feast of controversies to spotlight, the media all but forgot to stir up controversy on this one.

It's strange that national media seem oblivious of their role in boosting the level of ignorance in this country. The media have been unable to stand back and reflect on whether something is actually news or whether they're being used as a tool. The media are strangely unable to recognize when people have ulterior motives. The media are all too willing to play into the hands of hucksters. Sarah Palin is a prime example. She plays the media like a fiddle and yet, the media don't even recognize that. Poll after poll shows that Americans aren't all that interested in her, but the media fascination with her keeps her in the spotlight.

The Vapid Year in Journalism

Salon slams Politico for its Top 10 political scoops. Oh what fun it is to ride! Salon is right. What a vapid year. Sure wish the media could have informed us of the impending meltdown. Wasn't it Judith Miller of the NYT who told us Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?

Salon, which writes a lot of long-form, investigative and thoughtful pieces, must feel out in the cold. The dying media hasn't yet realized that it, too, needs to rejuvenate and renew the focus that it once held of afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted. But it can't do that without proper funding.

We'll probably live without quality journalism for a while, which will eventually lead to demand and then some new model of journalism will spring up to fill the void.

Salon's sarcastic swat:

Salon: Politico's media reporter, Michael Calderone, does an unintentionally superb job of conveying the vapid, wretched soul of the American political media, with his list of what he calls -- without any irony at all -- "The Top Ten Political Scoops of 2008":
(1) Katie Couric's interview of Sarah Palin (CBS)
(2) McCain can't say how many homes he owns (Politico)
(3) Obama's "bitter" comment (Huffington Post)
(4) Sarah Palin's shopping spree (Politico)
(5) Turmoil in the Clinton camp (Washington Post and Atlantic -- "The behind-the-scenes tension was captured by the reporters in one memorable exchange: '[Expletive] you!' Ickes shouted. '[Expletive] you!' Penn replied. '[Expletive] you!' Ickes shouted again.")
(6) Jeremiah Wright tapes (ABC News)
(7) The Pentagon's military analyst program (NY Times)
(8) Bickering in the McCain camp (NY Times Magazine)
(9) John Edwards' affair (National Enquirer)
(10) Powell endorses Obama (Meet the Press)
....
Indeed. For a politically engaged person, it is truly difficult to conceive of how any year could ever be more satisfying than one marked by riveting scandals over shopping sprees, bickering among campaign operatives, and an extramarital affair of someone who, at the time of disclosure, held no political office and was running for absolutely nothing. Anyone surveying this mountain-high pile of Pulitzer-worthy investigations can do nothing more than echo the observation of Newsweek's legendary Senior White House Correspondent, Richard Wolffe, who famously gushed: "the press here does a fantastic job of adhering to journalistic standards and covering politics in general." Who could review Calderone's glorious list of the year's top "scoops" and disagree with that?
In fairness to Calderone and his comrades in the political press, our media currently covers a country that has very few substantial problems and an administration that is renowned around the world for being competent, honest, conventional and quite uncontroversial.