News to Whom?

This evening, I watched the NBC Nightly News, just to make sure that I hadn't missed anything important. I won't make that mistake again. Lester Holt reported on "campaign surrogates," the hangers-on in McCain and Obama's official entourages. The jist of the report was that sometimes, these "spokespeople" say things that run counter to, or are just plain embarrassing for, the official candidate. Then, as the reporters swarm over the fresh meat of fabricated scandal, the candidate has to dance around behind a hastily constructed podium and deny the surrogate's statement while trying not to say, "What does any of this bullshit have to do with my plans for the economy?"

At the end of the report, Holt asked the obligatory news reporter about the significance of this week's gaffes. Standing in the rain in Washington DC, the reporter said something to the effect of, "Well, Lester, there's good news and bad news for the candidates. The good news is that American voters aren't listening to, and don't really care about what these surrogates say. The bad news is that their statements can stay in the news cycle for weeks."

Huh? Apparently, I've completely misunderstood the purpose of the news. I thought reporters were supposed to tell me about the issues that I care about, the issues that help me to be an informed citizen, the issues that matter to me when I make decisions in the voting booth. Seems I was totally wrong.

Because I watch the news, I know that reporters/pundits/the anointed jackasses du jour spend quite a bit of time talking about things I don't care about (what Jessie Jackson thinks of Barack Obama, for example). This whole time, I thought that the news reporters spent so much time on these stories because they mistakenly thought that I did care. I thought that they believed that they were acting in my best interest. I didn't realize that they KNOW that I don't care about these things, and still insist on blabbering on and on and on about them.

I feel so misled. I also feel certain that the NBC reporter is getting a stern talking to because he let the big cat out of the bag. Basically, he completely negated the need for news networks.