Schadenfreude and Our Nation's Inability to Prioritize

Sorry for the bland entry title, but just "schadenfreude" itself would have been too vague...

The point of this article? A new book published: "Game Change," an insiders' account as it were about the 2008 Presidential campaign. It's mostly about the personalities involved - Obama, the Clintons, the McCains, Palin, the Edwards. And it's mostly about watching them and the minor sideline characters act like crazed, overly emotional, territorial, gossipy, back-stabbing teenagers.

How much entertainment value will this book have? Tons.

How much practical, enlightening value will this book have? None.

Basically, all the book does is show how real people act when they're away from the cameras and public niceties: usually self-centered, self-pitying, self-everything. But the book doesn't provide ideas or information that could actually improve our nation's situation, improve our economy, promote better policies, any of that. It's just a 300-page-plus tabloid selling for 35 bucks at the nearest Books-A-Million.

Problem is, this book and the 'scandalous' behavior revealed in its pages are going to be the TOP STORY OF THE DAY across the mainstream media. They're talking about it on all the cable news. And there's already buzz over 'scandalous' statements that Sen. Majority Leader Harry "Why Did I Take This Job?" Reid made about Obama's "racial appeal"... namely that Reid used the word "Negro". The Republicans and their media dogs are already screaming for his scalp, claiming Reid's statements are no different than Sen. Trent Lott's - back in, when was it, 2005? - when Lott waxed nostalgic about Strom Thurmond's 1948 "segregation forever" campaigning. Actually, Reid's statements are in the positive, whereas Lott's were in the negative. Truth? Reid's statements are no different than Rush Limbaugh's... so if Reid has to go, so should Rush. WHEN CAN WE EXPECT YOUR RETIREMENT, RUSH?

Sigh. See where this is going? NOWHERE. While all of Washington is buzzing over this crap, this nation is, in no special order:
1) losing thousands of jobs A DAY;
2) facing more financial failures due to failed regulation enforcement;
3) refusing to feed our kids, rebuild our schools, save our communities;
4) failing to fix our broken health care system;
5) allowing criminal malfeasance by our corporate overlords that will eventually doom us all

Where, I ask, are our priorities? Why aren't the papers and the media outlets FOCUSING ON MORE PRESSING MATTERS?!

Because of the old axiom: If it bleeds, it leads. Pain, suffering, human comedy in the form of watching others act like jerks and losers. The crap that makes up our gossip pages. Those type of stories trump policy issues every time.

Well, that should change. That should end. Rather than satisfy our more base urges, the damn media needs to frakking prioritize. They need to FOCUS ON THE STORIES THAT WE NEED TO KNOW, not on the stories that we want to indulge.

I recommend this legislation:

• That for free speech to be truly free, any publication or media outlet wanting full First Amendment protection must operate as non-profit. That noise you just heard was Rush Limbaugh screaming about his $100 million contract.
• All for-profit media must be regulated as a business - that is, with due regard for liability, accuracy and quality of product.
• Quality of media product can be defined by a list of ranking the importance of any particular news item. That is, news of vital interest - War, Business, Policy changes - will rank above news of prurient interest - Sex, Drugs, Inane human behavior.
  For example, a White House administrator forcing a lower-ranked official to lie to Congress about the future costs of a massive Medicare/Pharma buyout package will rank 10 points above a President lying about getting blowjobs from a college-age office intern. Seriously, honestly, which of those two acts have proved the more harmful to our nation? The lying about costs, obviously, is far more damaging than a guy lying about blowjobs. But guess which one still gets coverage in the news all these years later?

If we can get our mainstream media to better prioritize our news, the more likely our citizenry will be better informed, more motivated to act politically, and more likely our politicians will answer to the people than to their lobbyist paymasters.

UPDATE. It's been awhile since I've linked to Greenwald, so here he is bemoaning the media's obsession with gossip:

The real value of a book like this lies in the opportunity it presents for Washington's elite class to distract themselves and everyone else from the oozing corruption, destruction, decaying and pillaging going on -- that these same Washington denizens have long enabled. With some important exceptions, that is the primary purpose of establishment journalism generally. Even better, the book lets our media and political elite -- and then the public generally -- feel good about themselves by morally condemning the trashy exploits of Rielle Hunter and the egoistic hypocrisies of the irrelevant John and Elizabeth Edwards. As The Nation's Chris Hayes so perfectly put it: "Just when you think the news cycle can't get any stupider, Mark Halperin publishes a book." All imperial courts -- especially collapsing ones -- love to occupy themselves with insular, snotty trivialities. As this book and the excitement it has produced demonstrates, providing that distraction is exactly what our press corps most loves to do and what it does best. The media sleazebags who turned Bill Clinton's penile spots, cigars and semen stains into headline news for two straight years haven't gone anywhere; they're actually stronger and more dominant than ever.

It's time to do something about it.