Stephen Colbert's joke is on the press
by Eric Boehlert
Did you notice the contrasting media responses to comedian Stephen Colbert's announcement that he plans to get his factually-challenged TV namesake on both the Democratic and Republican ballots for the South Carolina presidential primary? The mainstream Beltway press could barely contain its glee as it cheered the stunt on, lavishing all sorts of media attention on Colbert, and basking in the entertainment industry glow that his act brought to the White House campaign trail.
By contrast, it was mostly left to non-traditional online outlets to strike a skeptical chord; to make the grown-up observation that perhaps this wasn't the best idea. Over at the Huffington Post, Rachel Sklar, a major-league Colbert fan (as am I), wrote that the comedian's candidacy comes at the wrong time:
Now is the time for the fringe players to slip away. Bye-bye, Brownback, so long Kucinich (we predict) and Gravel (we hope). The race is tightening, stakes are getting higher, and the general feeling is that this is where things start to count. The distraction of a spoof candidate -- even the ultimate spoof candidate -- will just get in the way.
And the media website Gawker made a similar point, although with a bit more snark:
Now, we don't want to sound all imperious and shit, and we get the idea, add a little levity to the race, distract the cranky reporters, take everyone down a peg or two. It's good clean fun. But there's a $46 billion war on, we hear. And! Wildfires! Drought! ...We hope not still making the Sunday morning rounds come primary time. We like our candidates boring, bland, solemn -- and, you know, a smidge electable, because they'll be the ones in charge of killing foreigners and stuff.
Both feared that Colbert would be an unnecessary distraction. Agreed. But the Colbert candidacy becomes a distraction only if the press allows it to. And the sad fact is the press already has allowed it to, because
the press literally drives itself to distraction on the campaign trail. That's not an unfortunate side effect of the process. That's the goal.Think of political press corps as that fat kid from Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, Augustus Gloop. For too many journalists, the lure of the Colbert candidacy is akin to Wonka's river of chocolate, the one that lured the candy-loving Gloop into the deep end and got him stuck inside the tubes.
The press already seems to do everything it can to avoid covering campaign substance. Instead, it pursues trivia such as haircuts, and laughs, and cleavage, and parking tickets, and head movements, and marital sleeping habits, and chiseled good looks, and cats, and accents. It's clear that the allure of a saccharine story like Colbert's running gag is simply too tempting.
That's because
the press has decided to cover presidential candidates as celebrities, as personalities. This media phenomenon became enshrined during the 2000 contest, when the press announced that presidential campaigns were no longer about how candidates might function as presidents; what they might actually do as commander in chief. Instead, campaigns were about personalities -- which candidate was fun to be around and which one was authentic.
more...
http://mediamatters.org/columns/200710300001?f=h_top
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