When I did my daily round of news websites there was not a single constant top story among them:
Fox New has a story about Obama Care and it's technology glitches
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/10/09/3-million-obamacare-website-may-face-months-glitches-experts-warn/
CNN has a story about the questioning whether the GOP is dropping the Obama Care debate in the current shutdown
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/09/politics/shutdown-showdown/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
ABC News has a story about the newly nominated Chair of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/10/5-surprising-things-about-janet-yellen/
And the Drudge Report (they pull from many news sources for their content) is talking about he IRS scandal with the targeting members of the Tea Party
http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/09/white-house-irs-exchanged-confidential-taxpayer-info/
Now while I do look at about four other sources I didn't want to further bore you with more stories. So lets focus on these four.
Media and Politics, I contend tat they are symbiotic in nature. They need each other to function probably and neither one is completely in control of the other. They work together for there own advancement. So sometimes it will be the media that controls the story, or it will be the politician.
So what happens when your government is in day 9 of a government shutdown and there has been no resolution? That's right your media moves on because the American public's attention span is that of a gnat. Out of these fours news sources only 1 has a top story that is dealing with the Shutdown in any manner. Yes there are other stories farther down the page or a link taking you to something about he shutdown, but most Americans are surfers - they don't really go to far to get their news. What is front and center is what they think matters the most. What we have here is media and political symbiotic burn out.
And this is what you end up with; news sources differing on what the top news should be. We all know that it should be about the shutdown, but were into the ninth day so in order for the media to keep their viewership up they need to start branching out. So if your were an uninformed American who only really looked at one maybe two news sources, you might think that this government shutdown isn't that big deal. Because if it was then of course your news station would have it front and center...wouldn't they?
No, no they wouldn't.
I am totally amazed and a tad bit disgusted at the lack of informative reporting on the shutdown. Like you said the media has largely moved on from the subject, but even when it was new news it was, and still is, largely just a blame game. I really haven't seen any substantive reporting on the subject.
ReplyDeleteIn fairness I haven't dug deep into any objective news sources, but I actually did that on purpose to get an idea of what other people (regular non poli-sci majors) see. I have to tell you I am frustrated and confused and I can totally see why most people are mad at Congress and are tuned out to the whole thing.
As a tuned in poli-sci major I have to tell you, I am mad as hell at the lack of substantive coverage on a major issue.