Broadcast News

You know...  Ugh.  Sigh.  I was going to say that my super annoying day started when I rolled out of bed and logged onto Facebook and saw that almost all of my "friends" proclaimed they had donated their status to the Obama campaign.  I was going to say that but then I realized this has been going on much longer than today, and this issue is much bigger than Facebook etiquette.

The friends who donated status updates to Mr. Obama works at the major-media company I currently work at and/or the major-media company I worked at previously.  And when I say "media," I am specifically talking about the news.   

This fact should upset you if you watch, read, or hear the news.

I work in the news.  I went to graduate school to study the news.  But I never felt that someone needs to have a shiny degree in order to know right from wrong.  

I also happen to believe that personal politics are... hmm, I dunno... personal?  So while it always rubbed me the wrong way when a professor would unload his proclivities on the classroom as if they were fact, at the blue-state, private graduate school I attended, I took the preaching a little more in stride since there was always the underlying lesson that personal politics had absolutely no place in the newsroom.    

This was the single-most emphasized point that was taught at grad school.  The professors painted a sacred newsroom where all ideas were discussed.  And I really liked this magical place... 

And then I woke up.

And then I interned at a hit TV news show where the seniors cheered when a Democrat won an election.  Where I actually heard a producer say, "you're an idiot if you voted for Bush."  And then I worked at a Northeast bureau breaking news desk where similar scenarios played out.  And then I worked on a network news website that was intended for classroom use (yes- intended to mold the minds of America's youth), where marketing executives would blatantly try to cut Republican personalities from our content and where ridiculing Republicans seemed as acceptable a sport as Scientology-bashing and terrorist-hating.

And then I woke up and opened Facebook and nearly every single news person I know is publicly donating their viral powers to a political party.  I'm talking about bureau chiefs and producers and rights and clearances people and editors and former journalism classmates and even deans at the journalism school.

And then I went to work and I actually saw people wearing Obama pins.  And in one of the hallways someone had taped up that Economist cover featuring Mr. Obama and the text:  "It's time". 

Shame on all of you who work in the news and engage in this type of alienating behavior, this behavior that hinders robust discussion of the issues.  Shame on you.  If you are so passionate and educated about policy and politics, what are you doing working in what should be an objective industry?  Go run for office.  

  

 

And you know what? I had a really crappy day.