By Kathleen
THE STANDARD BEARER Jean-Leon Gerome
The Alaska Dispatch has today challenged Sarah Palin to teach the journalists there some finer points of journalism. Specifically, how to make the misrepresentation that she claims exists in mainstream media reporting irrelevant.
The reporter, Craig Medred, agrees with Palin that the mainstream media often gets it wrong but not because it is misreporting Palin. Medred believes that much of the mainstream media gets it wrong because it deciphers Palin's stammering, confused thoughts into simple logical soundbites which present her as logical and valid in today's political arena.
To make his case Medred outlines several examples from Palin's recent blundering Christian Broadcasting Network interview:
"This is that 3 a.m. White House phone call and it seems for many of us trying to get that information from our leader in the White House, it seems that that call went right to the answering machine. And nobody yet has explained to the American public what they know, and surely they know more than the rest of us know, who it is who will be taking the place of Mubarak."
It's Medred's view that the Associated Press oversimplified their interpretation of what it is Palin said in the above example. He thinks that in doing so the AP has misrepresented the real substance of her remarks which prove that she does not know what it is she is talking about.
Medred also quotes from the CBC interview:
"I'm not real enthused about what it is that is being done on a national level from D.C. in regards to understanding all the situation there in Egypt and in these areas that are so volatile right now, because obviously it's not just Egypt, but the other countries, too, where we are seeing uprisings."
Reading that statement Medred reports that he's "not at all able to figure out what the hell that long, confounding sentence says." I agree with Medred. It's hard to see the "wood for the trees." It's much easier to get hung up on the smaller details and in doing so all of us can fail to see the bigger picture.
"I'm not real enthused about what it is that is being done on a national level from D.C. in regards to understanding all the situation there in Egypt and in these areas that are so volatile right now, because obviously it's not just Egypt, but the other countries, too, where we are seeing uprisings."
Reading that statement Medred reports that he's "not at all able to figure out what the hell that long, confounding sentence says." I agree with Medred. It's hard to see the "wood for the trees." It's much easier to get hung up on the smaller details and in doing so all of us can fail to see the bigger picture.
Furthermore, years of listening to and reading Palin's incoherent rambling thoughts have hurt my brain to the extent that it is now physically numb. I hear Palin's voice and my first reaction is to instantly switch her off. When I really have to listen then I literally force myself to do so. Reading articles about Palin has now become for me another forced experience, similar to cramming material for an exam. I read and listen to articles and interviews regarding Palin because I know that I must, not because I want to. It is because learning is experience and I simply cannot know my subject as well as I think I do.
It's difficult to make sense of Palin's inept grasp of the simplest facts. Her world view is stunted by her limited experience and her constant knee jerk reactions to criticism. Alarmingly, as Medred accounts, at the time of the CBC interview it appeared that Palin did not understand why it is that Egypt and other middle east countries are engaged in revolution against their governments. That she blindingly or perhaps ignorantly overlooked the fact that the revolutions in the middle east are economic based as indeed most revolutions are. The middle-east protesters are presently the true standard bearers of democracy as they are engaged in true struggle.
Palin is not and never will be Presidential material. What is even more incomprehensible than her ignorance is that the mainstream media, who portray themselves as the standard moral bearers of truth, frequently present her thoughts as cohesive and sound when they are not. By doing so they sanction her as a legitimate candidate to stand as the GOP representative in the 2012 elections.
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