O Happy Day!

Tuesday was one of the happiest days of my life. Mostly because the American TV press does such a bad job. Let me explain.

They generally report the facts of given story correctly, but they do a terrible job of analyzing that story. For example, let’s say a senator criticizes the president. Does the press consider whether the senator’s criticism is valid? Barely. Do they consider the long term policy effects? Maybe. Or do they consider the senator’s partisan and electoral motivations and the short term political results? Almost exclusively. All that matters is the horse race. The only things analyzed are the cynical personal motivations of the players in question and their marginal political gains.

One of the many other things the cable press does badly is choose stories. How many stories do I have to see of missing pretty white girls? Or judges giving short sentences to child molesters? Or newlyweds getting lost at sea? This is not news, this is sensationalism.

But every once in a while bad TV journalism is just what’s needed. As everyone knows, last Saturday, Dick Cheney shot his 78 year old hunting buddy in the face. By actual journalistic standards, this is a minor story. Even the attempted half-assed cover-up is a minor story. But that didn’t stop the cable political talk shows from jumping up and down all over it. And thank God! Because bad TV news is the only venue that can do justice to such a wonderful story.

On Tuesday John Stewart’s the Daily Show churned out 15 minutes of solid gold humor. At one point the screen had a banner that read “Vice President’s Bullet Intercepted by Man’s Face”. I can’t remember the last time my heart was filled with such unadulterated joy! To be fair, my reaction was partly partisan. But mostly I could not believe what an incredibly funny thing it was that the Vice President had shot a 78 year old man in the face. Seriously.

But it isn’t news. But it is a profound moment in American pop culture. It ranks up there with Elvis rocking-n-rolling on Ed Sullivan and George H. W. Bush puking all over a Japanese state banquet. And it touches a chord in our consciousness in the same way. And where better does such a story belong than on a show like Keith Olbermann’s Countdown, where they show things like poodles pedaling tricycles? When ultimately meaningless but bizarre and hilarious and compelling things like this happen only bad TV journalism can give the story the treatment it deserves.