The media’s one-sided coverage.
The media’s one-sided coverage.
Ramirez provides this wonderful comparison of the press’s coverage of past gaffes:
The date was June 15, 1992. In an elementary school in Trenton, New Jersey, reading off a flash card that had been prepared by the teacher, the special guest counseled the child writing potato on the blackboard, “You’re close, but you left a little something off. The ‘e’ on the end.”
The media reacted swiftly and relentlessly. The story was on all the front pages and was carried by all the major networks. To the mainstream media, it was the moment that Dan Quayle confirmed “what a waste it is to lose one’s mind.” It didn’t matter that the flash card given to the vice president was prepared by a teacher and was itself misspelled. It was carried on every news wire, every news program and in every late night TV monologue.
Quayle’s mind must have been on other things. It wasn’t like he repeated the mistake in all 57 states, or more precisely in Beaverton, Ore., in May 2008; or while traveling on the “Intercontinental” railroad in Cincinnati on Sept. 23, 2011; or perhaps, while he was speaking to the “President” of Canada in Chicago on Aug. 7, 2007.
He might not have known how to say it in “Austrian” while in Strasbourg, France, on April 5, 2009; or perhaps he was thinking of “Polish Death Camps” at the White House on May 30, 2012; or thinking about when he met with world leaders in that splendid “Asian” city, Honolulu, on Nov. 16, 2011.
He might have been thinking of the brave Navy “corpse” man at the prayer breakfast in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 5, 2010, which may not sound so strange to someone who also said: “On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today…”
All these examples were unreported or under-reported gaffes of President Obama. [emphasis mine]
I know of these Obama gaffes because I intentionally do not depend on the mainstream media for my political news. And though I only consider them significant in total, as an indication of Obama’s true level of incompetence, what Ramirez is noting is the difference in coverage, something that continues to this day. Republican gaffes get blared from the rooftops, Democratic gaffes are poo-pooed away.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The media’s one-sided coverage.
Ramirez provides this wonderful comparison of the press’s coverage of past gaffes:
The date was June 15, 1992. In an elementary school in Trenton, New Jersey, reading off a flash card that had been prepared by the teacher, the special guest counseled the child writing potato on the blackboard, “You’re close, but you left a little something off. The ‘e’ on the end.”
The media reacted swiftly and relentlessly. The story was on all the front pages and was carried by all the major networks. To the mainstream media, it was the moment that Dan Quayle confirmed “what a waste it is to lose one’s mind.” It didn’t matter that the flash card given to the vice president was prepared by a teacher and was itself misspelled. It was carried on every news wire, every news program and in every late night TV monologue.
Quayle’s mind must have been on other things. It wasn’t like he repeated the mistake in all 57 states, or more precisely in Beaverton, Ore., in May 2008; or while traveling on the “Intercontinental” railroad in Cincinnati on Sept. 23, 2011; or perhaps, while he was speaking to the “President” of Canada in Chicago on Aug. 7, 2007.
He might not have known how to say it in “Austrian” while in Strasbourg, France, on April 5, 2009; or perhaps he was thinking of “Polish Death Camps” at the White House on May 30, 2012; or thinking about when he met with world leaders in that splendid “Asian” city, Honolulu, on Nov. 16, 2011.
He might have been thinking of the brave Navy “corpse” man at the prayer breakfast in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 5, 2010, which may not sound so strange to someone who also said: “On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today…”
All these examples were unreported or under-reported gaffes of President Obama. [emphasis mine]
I know of these Obama gaffes because I intentionally do not depend on the mainstream media for my political news. And though I only consider them significant in total, as an indication of Obama’s true level of incompetence, what Ramirez is noting is the difference in coverage, something that continues to this day. Republican gaffes get blared from the rooftops, Democratic gaffes are poo-pooed away.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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