AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS ADDICT

I was watching the final round of the Women’s U.S. Open Sunday, and had to laugh as the NBC announcers tried to jump back on Michelle Wie’s bandwagon after they had previously jumped off the very bandwagon that they created in the first place. The announcers tried to absolve themselves of any responsibility for creating a false reality that Michell Wie had to dig herself out of.

MEDIA EXPECTATIONS FOR A 13 YEAR OLD

Michelle Wie was 13 years old when she played in the final group at a major. She had chances to win the U.S. Open when she was 15 and 16 years old. Of course the media is always hunting for the next big story and Michelle Wie was the perfect fit for their already written story. Her father said “Tiger is her benchmark, not women – Tiger”, and of course the media loved this. They couldn’t ignore a stupid comment by the father of a 13 year old girl, no they had to feed the monster of expectations they were creating. They had to write the story about her greatness before it actually happened. When the story didn’t unfold according to their expectations, they started to tear her down as if it was her fault. Then on the back nine when it looked like Michelle Wie was going to win, they started to try to jump on the real bandwagon, which would be her actually winning the U.S. Open.

MEDIA AS A PROPAGANDA MACHINE

This is why I hate  journalism in general and journalists in particular. They are a propaganda machine for their vision of how the world should be. Anyone of anything that doesn’t fit this vision or, in the case of Michell Wie, doesn’t fulfill the expectations of their already written story, gets chopped down and tossed on the scrape heap. Think of the media stories that would have been written if either Tiger Woods or Lebron James hadn’t turned out to be as good as or better than the expectations created by the media.

OBAMA MEETING AND EXCEEDING MEDIA EXPECTATIONS

President Obama is another example of a media creation. His only accomplishment is being elected president. Of course the media can help someone be elected president, but they can’t help someone shoot 18 under to win the Masters or have a career playoff average of 28 pts per game. The President hadn’t even been in office a year, and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This is like giving a kid a medal just for participating. When will journalists start to jump off the bandwagon that they created? Don’t hold your breath. In the case of the President, he doesn’t have to have any accomplishments, because there is no real standard to judge what is or is not a real accomplishment on the political playing field other than lying to get elected. Instead of being a check on political power, journalists have decided to award the President the gold medal by giving him perfect scores on belly flop dives.

CONCLUSION

Journalists, like all humans, are biased. They have constitutionally protected status, which hides this bias. They can build up anyone who fits the story that they have already written. They cannot tear down anyone who has measurable accomplishments. They won’t tear down someone with no accomplishments, as long as he fits their vision. If it looks like their reporting can’t keep their guy propped up, they will  jump in front of the parade of public opinion and act like they are leading it. This allows them to hedge their position in case the situation changes again. Wouldn’t it be easier to just write the truth no matter who it hurts or helps?

I’m happy for Michelle Wie for two reasons, 1) She has a real accomplishment, that journalists can’t take away. 2) Her win flipped the media the bird.

This entry was posted on June 24, 2014 at 8:42 am and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Media Bias, Media Created Reality, Michelle Wie, Nobel Peace Prize, Obama, Real Accomplishments, Women's U.s Open Golf