President Obama Gets Stitches...So?
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
All of the late night talk show hosts have been paying special attention to the recent Presidential basketball game that left President Obama with stitches in his lip.
Getting slightly less talk time on the late night shows is Obama's recent announcement that he is going to freeze government salaries for the next two years.
It is clear that while entertainment includes media information, only the most entertaining of news concerning the most important of people get the attention.
Late night shows aren't the only media outlets seeming to be more concerned with the entertaining side of Obama's personal Thanksgiving activities than his Presidential duties and decisions. An article on rollitout.com comes up in recent google.com searches for President Obama.
The article title is "President Obama Announces Federal Pay Freeze," however the first sentence of the article reads, "Just days after receiving 12 stitches in his bottom lip during a pick-up basketball game, President Obama..." etc.
Bloggers and columnists are also combining the entertaining personal life of Obama with his recent announcement.
Washington Post Metro Columnist Courtland Milloy wrote an article called "Obama, the Great Placator, needs to throw some elbows." Of course the first point of the column written at 10:23 p.m. on November 30, 2010, was Obama's stitches and why they were necessary.
All the way down in the SIXTH paragraph Milloy finally mentions Obama's announcement.
I can understand entertainment outlets harping on Obama's mishap, but news outlets?
While his personal life may be entertaining at the moment, his presidential duties are still most important.
Leave the entertaining to the talk show hosts, and talk about the important things.
2 comments:
I agree with you Kati. This seems ridiculous that a news article is more concerned with Obama's lip. I could understand if the article was in the editorial section, but it seems odd to add that tidbit so late in. These should either have been two different articles, or not as much time spent on his lip.
However, as we have talked about in class, gossip sells. While people may want to know about the government freezes, there will be those that want to know about his stitches as well.
Neither Stewart nor Colbert made fun or even talked about Obama's lip, and that's usually where I expect to see these kind of news.
However, due to such novelty, I can understand why serious news organizations would like to mention the accident. As Candra said, "people love novelty," especially if it involves the president.
But you are right, serious matters deserve serious discussion.
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