The Ugly Stepsisters

In the Disney animated film Cinderella, Cinderella’s little mice friends make her a gown she can wear to the ball, trimming it with the baubles, bangles, and beads that Cinderella’s stepsisters have discarded as worthless to them. When the stepsisters see Cinderella in her new gown, they gasp in horror that she dared to steal their finery, and rip their “treasures” off it until the gown is reduced to shreds. Then they mock her for dressing in rags and thinking she’s fit to attend a ball, as if they had nothing to do with reducing her to such a sorry state.I thought of that scene when I read this Associated Press report that Senator Obama needs to convince voters of his patriotism after “a series of incidents that prompted questions about his patriotism”.

It was not the “series of incidents” that prompted questions about his patriotism. It was the so-called news media’s willingness to repeat the rightwing attacks on Senator Obama as if they had some basis in reality. This article more or less admits the attacks were fabricated from gross exaggerations and out-of-context quotes, but puts that admission “below the fold” so that the article serves as reinforcement for the accusations.

The media ripped the senator’s patriotism to shreds, and now they blithely blame him for the damage they did. Unlike the Ugly Stepsisters, they’re not necessarily acting out of spite and envy. They just love having a “controversy” to cover, and have strayed so far from journalistic ethics that they don’t even notice anymore when they actually create the story in order to have something juicy to report.

Is it any wonder they’re constantly losing readers?