Spin Cushion

The guests on this morning's edition of "Meet the Press" were chief officials from both the McCain and Obama campaigns: David Axelrod and Steve Schmidt. What they offered was nothing resembling news as it was once known, but only further proof of how indistiguishable modern news has become from professional wrestling.

While representatives from campaigns make more television appearances this time of year than ED treatments, I remain distressed that these so-called "spin-meisters" command so much of the media's collective attentions. Is there a single journalist following either campaign who doesn't know what talking points will spill from these spinsters' mouths? Is there, thus, any connection to news being made or offered when these individuals are given such significant platforms from which to spew their unchallenged nonsense?

We have all witnessed the decline of journalism since the advent of the 24-hour news channels (and even moreso since the unchallenged "you're with us or against us" patriotism demands post-9/11), but, as with most things in the public sector, we're not sufficiently outraged. Only if we turn OFF our televisions immediately following sanctioned debates are we allowed the opportunity to draw our own conclusions, and assess and weigh our own reactions, before they are tainted by the anything-but-impartial talking heads given as much air time (and longer response times) than the candidates preceding them. We've become so conditioned to being told what, and how, to think by our favorite "news" personalities, we couldn't stitch together an independent, well-informed position on most any issue of importance. I don't need (or want) to hear what one campaign says about another - I need (and want) to hear how we can reclaim a government that has grown more despotic by the year, how we can reestablish international respect, how we can extracate ourselves from a preemptive and criminal war with decency and aplomb and how we can pay-off a crippling national debt. Are these issues truly less important than who wears what bracelet?

News, by definition, should involve the imparting of information that is new, relevant and accurate. What media outlets should spend time doing, and fill hours broadcasting, involves fact-checking the increasingly outrageous spin that comes from the candidates and their surrogates, not allowing those individuals endless hours within which to poke and prod an increasingly ill-informed and dizzy electorate with one push-spin after another.