Media Priorities

[mabfan]

I love quotes like this.

The set-up, for those of you who don't have the time or inclination to read "Clinton Gets an Instant Chance to Wield a New Weapon" by Jim Rutenberg: The Clinton campaign has set up a web site devoted to instantaneous rebuttal of incorrect news reports. Yesterday, the site was used to refute a claim that Clinton had failed to tip her waitress at a Maid-Rite diner in Iowa.

The Times contacted the waitress, Anita Esterday, who seems to have shown a lot more sense than the rest of the world on this issue:

“You people are really nuts,” she told a reporter during a phone interview. “There’s kids dying in the war, the price of oil right now — there’s better things in this world to be thinking about than who served Hillary Clinton at Maid-Rite and who got a tip and who didn’t get a tip.”

Amen.

Comments

[rwl.livejournal.com]

That same restaurant was featured in one of the episodes of the Food Network's very entertaining Feasting on Asphalt series with Alton Brown.

[pxcampbell.livejournal.com]

Wisdom from the heartland...

(Not that the heartland has a lock on wisdom, or anything.)

Let's elect Ms. Esterday instead.

[pxcampbell.livejournal.com]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/us/politics/09clinton.html?ex=1352350800&en=cf90a08259872957&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

I take it back -- apparently, Ms. Esterday knew well enough to hold up the Clinton campaign for an additional $20.

[webfarmer.livejournal.com]

Double amen to that.

[sethg]

[edited to be publishable in a family weblog]

What, you want our media to inform the public about political candidates by actually describing their positions on the war, the economy, health care, etc., instead of acting like gossipy seventh-grade girls? ("Ooh, did you hear how much John Edwards spent on his haircut?")

That would require reporters and editors who understood the war, the economy, health care, etc., well enough to ask candidates intelligent questions, compare them in a way that would help readers understand the issues, and recognize when they were being fed a line of bull. It might even require those reporters to take the time to do some actual research, instead of waiting for the campaigns to send out duelling press releases.