As IF Times

link A stunning turn that could silence Syria war drums – CNN.com.

It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye is the old saying.

Now that the issue of how to deal with Syria has pushed all other domestic issues to the background, the competence of the President is under genuine critical  scrutiny.  Even erstwhile loyal supporters and apologists are figuratively taking a few steps back from their unwavering support.  When you have the clinical nutbar Alan Grayson openly questioning the policies of his party leader, we know that the façade of solidarity is crumbling.

Barack Obama has come under as much critical scrutiny as he ever has since appearing suddenly on the national stage.  The partisan knives are growing in their number and even stalwart party soldiers are waffling.  But is this fair?

I think not.  I think Barack Obama has been unfairly treated.  The fact is, the President did not suddenly become incompetent.  Anyone who paid attention will know that he brought that “skill set” to the job from the very beginning.   What has finally changed is that the portrayal and obfuscation of this exaggerated skill set by the media fan boys has now turned.  In the past, we’ve made reference to the Chauncy Gardner character from the 1979 satirical film “Being There” and what we observe now is an apt parallel as life tragically imitates art.

Barack Obama was the perfect foil for championing the sundry issues of the political left, from income disparity, racial disharmony, religious tolerance, social change,  immigration reform, global warming etc etc etc.  All of these issues had one common feature;  they segregated the populace into us versus them.  With the emergence of the Syria crisis, one largely of Obama’s own making, it’s clear that America’s interests as a nation are being challenged and the other side is not going to be guilted or lobbied into submission.

Syria lays clear what has been apparent to many from the beginning.  The administration’s policies lack depth of thought or planning.  What’s worse, it’s more and more obvious that the administration has no depth.  It’s bad enough that the first string guy is going up against players like Russian leader Putin, Chinese leader Li Keqiang as well as all manner of assorted Mullahs and despots but imagine if Joe Biden had to step in as relief.  As it is, John Kerry is getting the policy beat-down from Putin in the international ring  while Susan “Pinocchio” Rice is looking for another video to pin the blame for Syria onto.

But again, while all collectively incompetent, they are mostly not to blame.  That falls squarely on the shoulders of the journalism industry, the institution that’s supposed to be charged with looking after the public’s interests.  Instead, over the past 6 years, they have been acting like used car salesmen hiding the blatant imperfections and exaggerating the features of an obviously defective vehicle.  Only now, the warranty has expired.

link Newspaper bane: Nobody reads the stories.

One of the great consequences of the trend towards packaging news and entertainment into bite sized pieces for the modern A.D.D. culture is that much of the depth of information is lost.  Ironically, at a time in history when there has never been as much information, news and entertainment so readily available to so many, people are as uninformed as ever about events that affect their lives.

In the news business, this can arguably be traced back to the appearance of USA Today, a publication that was novel when it first appeared in the early ’80’s.  In many ways, this paper set the trend for the format of how news was to be presented as we see it today.  Up until its appearance, most newspapers were uniformly drab in appearance and pedestrian in their reportage.  When USA Today showed up, there was color on the pages, there were quick headlines supported by only short write-ups.  The paper was made for the hurried commuter interested only in scanning the headlines of news, sports and entertainment on a given workday.

Then the 24 hour news channels started up, the pioneer of which was CNN. All of a sudden, it was essential to fill the airwaves with ‘news’, but in short headline style delivery.  With the advent of the internet, Google, Yahoo and Bing News supplanted cable stations and newspapers as being primary sources of information.  It’s important to note the distinction between the modern news sources and the older newspapers.  Google, Bing and Yahoo are only aggregators of news, they actually don’t create it.   Their role is to cast as wide a net as possible to capture the most eyeballs to their sites.  While this may seem  democratic and in the spirit of free markets, in reality, the editors of those sites wield powerful control over the content which is presented on their sites thereby influencing public opinion as newspapers did in past generations.  The difference is that there are no editorial columns on the sites of the news aggregators; the influence is through the selection of stories that get to be featured prominently in their links.

For example, the influence of Justin Bieber in our culture (outside of the pimply set ) is wildly exaggerated by virtue of regular breathless stories of his exploits on any given day.  Same with Lindsay Lohan, P. Diddy, or any of the Kardashians.  We are bombarded by the inane and insane outbursts by such as Al Sharpton and Al Gore who are given platforms well beyond what they could muster if not aided by a willing media.  I suspect that most people never even bother to read the underlying stories, since the content is pretty much expected given the personalities involved.  Why bother to read the body of the story, since we know a story involving Sharpton involves imagined racism and a story involving Gore involves imagined warming.

The real sea change however is the art of headline writing.  To catch peoples’ attentions, dramatic headlines are the hook by which readers are drawn in.  In fact, headline writing continues as a skill in itself and if done correctly, obviates the need to read an entire story.  I recall years ago when Nikita Kruschev passed away; the headline was: “Top Red Dead”.  Today, we have reportage of Anthony Wiener’s brazen campaign for mayor in New York City offering headlines such as “Weiner support getting soft” or “Weiner support shrinking” and his response which states, “Wiener sticking it out”.   The President even waded into the situation by chastising Wiener.  So of course, the headline is “Obama beats Wiener”.

Perhaps no one today is as adept at the “story in a headline” technique as Matt Drudge in his eponymous  Drudge Report.  From nowhere 10 years ago to inarguably the most powerful media figure today (next to Roger Ailes ) his news site brings the top stories of the day concisely and bluntly.  As an example, the top headlines in today’s Drudge lists the following: