Wednesday, August 27, 2008

No wonder political dialogue seems so stupid


You don't actually get to hear it!

Last night I turned on the TV to watch the Democratic National Convention. On CPAC it was straight coverage of the speeches, all of them, and some were very interesting and informed me about what Democrats think is important this year. But then the satellite signal stopped working and I switched over to CBCs News World where it was nothing but media talking head followed by academic talking head followed by professional commentator talking head until they got to Hillary Clinton, when they actually showed her speech. None of the information that I got from watching on CPAC got through this screen of really obvious commentary.

If you didn't know anything about what's happened in the campaign so far, all those talking heads would have given you a little bit of background. But that could have been done in five minutes, and if you really care about American politics you'd want to see the speeches.

I am really ashamed of the coverage by the CBC. They are supposed to be a lot less brain-dead in the American media, and a lot less superficial.

Image: Joseph Faber's exhibition of his "Wonderful Talking Machine" at the Musical Fund Hall in Philadelphia, 1845. More here.

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