Official Disaster

Writes Charley Reese: “If you are a television watcher, you might be forgiven for believing that the American people have become ‘extras’ in a drama that features only two sets of star players — the media and the politicians.

“When someone first learned how to attach a soundtrack to film, silent movies became the ‘talkies,’ as they were originally called. To this day, all simulations of reality, and even reality itself, captured on film or video or digital media requires pictures and talk.

“Nobody, except the media, is better at and more eager to talk than politicians. Another factor is the superstition of journalists that something doesn’t exist unless ‘an official’ says it exists.

“You would think in the current extravaganza called the California wildfires that reporters could simply describe what they are seeing. That, of course, would be ‘unofficial,’ so they need some official or politician to tell them how bad what they are seeing really is. Also there is the problem that television reporters generally stay in one spot with their cameraman and repeat the same hearsay all throughout the news cycle.”

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12:03 pm on October 26, 2007