If you've watched any domestic coverage of the London bombings and compared it to what's on the BBC, you reach one conclusion: American TV news is batshit insane.
Compare Britain's coverage to America's, and you'd think someone bombed the U.S.S. Maine, and that a piece of shrapnel grazed a runaway bride. American broadcasting loves fear. It draws the following lessons: Be very afraid. This is a frightening time of frightful fear, and if you're not scared by the frightening scariness, stay tuned until after the break, because the frightening implications are scarily terrifying.
The news broadcasts should replace the pompous instrumentals with Coldplay's "Yellow." Or maybe Donovan's "They Call Me Mellow Yellow." Works on at least two levels, right?
Also, they're obsessed with drawing parallels between 9/11 and the transit bombings. Because Britain is reacting like a nation of grown-ups and America seeks inspiration from JoBeth Williams's performance in Poltergeist, the comparisons are strained. NBC's resident bitch boy and David Drier clone John Seigenthaler said on Saturday that the two bombings "are different in many ways, but they're the same." Do you think he realized that he was directly contradicting himself? I don't, because I don't think he believes in proofreading.
CNN accidentally featured a great moment. Amid self-congratulating vignettes in which CNN personalities discussed where they were at the time of the bombings and how they personally reacted, Christiane Amanpour reported live from a London street. Midway through her report, a local stood behind her, pointed at the camera, and demanded that CNN tell the truth about Iraq. He wouldn't leave, and CNN didn't cut away. Pathetic that the only honesty a person can see on CNN comes from a belligerent English pedestrian, but I'll take it where I can find it.
On at least one issue, Rush Limbaugh is a voice of reason. As transcribed on Media Matters (for a completely different reason), the bastard discussed London Mayor Ken Livingston and said, "And it was such a great contrast to what we're seeing in our own media this morning with the hand-wringing I was speaking about and the 'Oh, woe is us' and 'Oh, what did we do to cause this?' and 'Oh, does this mean we're going to get hit?' and 'Oh ...'" These comments were surrounded by idiocy, but that just makes it all the more inspiring. Left or right, we are united on one thing: contempt for the five dollar crackwhores on our screens.
*Note: this does not apply to our friends and readers in the press, all of whom work in print. In case there's any doubt, have I told you lately that I love you?
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I watched CNN with some friends from Italy Thursday night, and it was the first time I've watched more than 5 minutes of CNN in years. It was so disgusting. We switched to BBC America.
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