Friday, October 10, 2008

The Revolution Will Be Televised...On Inside Edition?

You know the political winds are blowing harshly when the sleazy TV gossip shows begin covering the economic collapse. I tuned into Inside Edition last night and all of a sudden there's this story about "AIG executives who, in the midst of an economic crisis, are being treated to a luxurious vacation at a Ritz-Carlton in Northern California." Before I know it, there's exotic footage of the Half Moon Bay Ritz-Carlton! Oh, those dirty, dirty insurance execs - living it up at the Half Moon Bay Ritz-Carlton while the rest of us have to scramble around and salvage what's left of our retirement savings. Tsk tsk!

None of the AIG execs were celebrities. As far as I could tell, the sole appeal of the story was the corporate outrageousness and nothing more. Imagine this kind of story airing on Inside Edition a year ago. How much of Inside Edition's target audience would have even known what AIG was? Are we witnessing the mainstreaming of working-class anger (or something akin to it)?

And I haven't even mentioned the story about "Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama deliberately avoiding each other on stage at the end of last Tuesday's debate?!?" Lo and behold, they had the footage to prove it. But on the Daily Show Michelle denied the rumors: "We'd already greeted each other back stage beforehand." Yeah, sure, like I'm going to believe that one.

1 comment:

Herr Zrbo said...

Yeah, I was surprised last night when on CNN they said they would have hourly checkups of the international markets. Whaa, American newz covering international markets?? Where's my Britney news?? I need to know about Angelina and Brad, not some Brits playing ftse!