Too Honest?
Laura Billings is a triple threat.
In one column, she shows:
- Why we need bloggers
- Why European newspapers are better
- Why Mattel Corporation needs to get back to work perfecting their lagging Barbie (TM) Doll technology.
She says:
...there are some things America doesn't do nearly as well as Great Britain, which today provides a beautiful vision of what our election process could be.
Which is, indeed, a hellish vision - if you apply it to America.
I'm not celebrating the outcome, which analysts were predicting to be a third-term victory for Labor and their leader, Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has proven to be almost as Teflon-coated as his current peer across the pond. But rather the process itself, the culture of the campaign, which seems so much more civilized than our own that you almost wish they could come over and colonize us again.
And what is it that makes Billings pine for the simplicity of Brit elections?
You see, in England, when live audiences are invited to attend a campaign appearance they are selected not for their loyalty and enthusiasm for a candidate, but are instead chosen by independent producers who screen them for how hostile and well-informed they are. This makes for rather good television, as candidates are routinely forced from their scripts and made to sweat under the lights.
The British prefer television programs to the television ads that characterize our race. While Bush and Kerry and company spent a record $600 million on TV and radio ads in 2004, each candidate in England was limited to just five ads, 2½ minutes each, that were each aired just once before today's election.
In other words, she wants a campaign where the news media has an even more disproportionate influence over opinion than they do here; audiences selected by "independent" (riiight) producers, candidates' messages limited to what the media - the Beeb (which lies about its biases) and the newspapers (which are at least honest about theirs, unlike Ms. Billings and most of the US media) decide to pass on.
And we know how well that works, right? How honest and unbiased the media are?
Tell you what, Laura Billings: We can do that, if you don't mind getting the American media to drop its pretenses (as have the British media) and admit, honestly, their institutional orientations.
While we're waiting on that...
And while they may engage in the same attack-style politics that have characterized our elections, they keep things a bit simpler. For instance, when critics said Blair had caved in to leftist interests, the complaint was about something everyone can understand — a ban on fox hunting — rather than something complicated like stem cell research, which no one can understand, least of all politicians.
"Gosh, all that science is sooo hard! Can't we stick with more quick-hit right and wrong black and white issues and "news of the wierd" trivial dreck, the kind of stuff I can crank a column out of before my first cup of coffee?"
Remember; Professional Journalists are better than bloggers (or as Nick Coleman calls them, "ba-LAW-gers") because they know stuff.
British scandals, fueled by a media whose rapaciousness makes ours look subdued, dwarf ours in sheer prurience and lunacy.
The very best thing about the British election? It lasts just 30 days from start to finish.
So why are ours so long?
It's not like the news media that feeds Laura Billings wants it that way - that it was stirring the pot for the 2006 elections by November 4, 2004 - is it?
Brevity may be the soul of wit, as Shakespeare once wrote. But it also sounds like a great blessing to British voters.
It'd be a real boon to us PiPress readers...
Posted by Mitch at
May 5, 2005 07:19 AM
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I admire you, Mitch. I tried to read today's Billings column, and I bailed after the first paragraph. Ugh.
Posted by: Paul at May 5, 2005 07:37 AMSO Billings likes brevity -- she wouldn't happen to know anyone who was long-winded would she?
Posted by: Michael at May 5, 2005 08:12 AMAnd this kind of complete stupidity from Billings is SURPRISING? Heck, she sleeps with Nick Coleman...exhibiting obvious brain damage. I'm surprised she has the brain cells to string a sentence together.
Imagine the "fun" of being a kid in THAT house, huh? Some mental health provider is gonna get rich helping that poor kid.
Posted by: Dave at May 5, 2005 10:12 AMBillings, et al....ahhhh...free speech, paid advertising and the First Amendment....its SOOOO...18th and 19th and 20th Century....their ilk know better than the great unwashed masses....
We have seen that with the stadium tax rate increase (or the Carl Pohlad Enrichment Act of 2005) that they do no want any tax or electoral decisions anywhere near a poll on these decisions..
The public be damned again by elephants and donkeys...
Posted by: Greg at May 5, 2005 10:13 AMBillings, et al....ahhhh...free speech, paid advertising and the First Amendment....its SOOOO...18th and 19th and 20th Century....their ilk know better than the great unwashed masses....
We have seen that with the stadium tax rate increase (or the Carl Pohlad Enrichment Act of 2005) that they do no want any tax or electoral decisions anywhere near a poll on these decisions..
The public be damned again by elephants and donkeys...
Posted by: Greg at May 5, 2005 10:13 AMSorry for double post...server has been acting funny at you end (404 errors).
Posted by: Greg at May 5, 2005 10:15 AMDave,
I'm going to gently chide you here; I leave peoples' kids out of my blog. Nick 'n Laura are atrocious columnists, and Coleman is a walking caricature of everything that's wrong with the mainstream media, but I have no reason to believe they're not perfectly fine parents.
If it's OK with everyone, let's leave the families out of the commentary. It's just business.
Posted by: mitch at May 5, 2005 10:26 AMShe writes: "The very best thing about the British election? It lasts just 30 days from start to finish."
This shows she doesn't really understand the British election process.
Actually, the campaign has been waging since late last fall. The "official" campaign lasts 30 days, but that's like saying the American presidential campaign only lasts from the nominating conventions until the first Tuesday in November.
Posted by: Dicky at May 5, 2005 10:34 AMWell, I can appreciate your point. But if Britain's way would eliminate the deceptive influence by the likes of the Swift Boat Liars and MoveOn(outof here).orgs of the country, I would be open to those types of alternatives. It shouldn;t be about who has the biggest piggy bank, it should be about who has thebest ideas and ability to move the country forward. If our candidates have to spend their time showering off the mud at every stop, what purpose does that serve.
And as for you cinitued push of the Liberal Media Meme. It just keeps gettin sillier I love the PEW research study I ran accross not to long ago analysing the Coverage of Gore and Bush in 2000. ""of the coverage of Al Gore, 13% was positive, 31% was neutral, and 56% was negative. On the other hand, of coverage of Bush, 24% was positive, 27% was neutral, and 49% was negative. This data was taken from Pew Charitable Trusts Project for Excellence in Journalism, one of the largest and most prestigious foundations in America"" Wouldn't a 'truly' liberal media powder puff their guy and beat up the opposition.
Flash
Posted by: Flash at May 5, 2005 10:37 AMPew's "surveys" have been caught showing bias as well.
And nobody has yet shown us where the Swifties were lying. Perhaps Flash could enlighten me.
Posted by: Josh at May 5, 2005 10:40 AMMitch:
Not picking on the kid....but the stupidity of the parents....
Posted by: Dave at May 5, 2005 10:51 AMJosh, it would take an objective mind, and your statement right out of the shoot shows you wouldn't qualify! This has all been hashed over before, no need to hijack the thread to beat this dead horse.
I believe both sides had their share of deception and twisted truths. It would be nice to someday get back to honest debate and good old fashion fact checking
Flash
Posted by: Flas at May 5, 2005 10:53 AMFlash,
I AM open-minded, but the "hashing out" of the Swifties was pretty well debunked at the time. Their critics tagged them on a couple of little points, and never addressed the big ones.
Posted by: Josh at May 5, 2005 01:43 PMYeah Flash why beat a dead horse? It's so much easier to flog tired talking points that have no basis in fact. You can keep saying that the Swift Vets were liars all you want. But until someone (anyone? Bueller?) proves it, your regurgitating it as Gospel doesn't make it so.
Maybe if Kerry would just release those pesky military records. That's gonna happen any day now, right?
Posted by: the elder at May 5, 2005 01:58 PMI always find it interesting the way great guardians of free speech like Laura and Nick-o are only interested in their employers' right to speak. The rest of us better shut up unless we clear what we want to say with the "professionials." Same with McCain and his buddy Feingold. We ignorant unwashed masses are simply not allowed to have any opinions. That's only for the pros who want to restrict topics to the nice simple things, preferably those that rhyme as in "lied" and "died." Well, fuggedaboudit!
Posted by: Dave S. at May 5, 2005 02:01 PMMitch, you dissected the body of the piece quite well. I stopped and blogged about that atrocious first paragraph. Weak, if not inaccurate comparisons and all in all a horsecrap lead.
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