CBS – You’ve Done It Again…

I don’t even know why I am writing this. See, this article is going to talk about a particular subject matter, but it treats it in a manner that somewhat demeans the very act of discussing that subject matter itself. If talking about “A” is stupid, is telling others about the stupidity of “A” stupid too?
Woefully unaware of the ontological conundrum I have just created for my poor poor head, I shall engender to engage in an exploration of the “Meta” nature of American corporate media today.
What am I talking about? The pro-life advertisement that Evangelical Christian advocate group, Focus on the Family, bought during the Superbowl game is a prime example of a self-serving media structure that constructs the debate like they want you to see it. By “they” I mean the conglomerates and interests paying for the salaries of the network executives. And by “salaries” I mean the astronomical numbers that, sadly, I may never get to see in my own paycheck in this life time.
The ad itself, you may observe, is actually not the kind of “in-your-face” and “foot-in-ass” thou shalt not sin messages we have come to love from the Bradley Bunch that is Evangelical preach-hood. Some of us having fond memories of footage from Jesus Camp, the 2006 documentary by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing may understand what I’m referring to. No, that advertisement was subtle and unobtrusive and in all manners a mere personal reflection of a woman who got lucky and fell in the statistically significant proportion of people who have benefited from modern healthcare technologies and methods to give birth to Tim Tebow. I think there was a reference to the doctors who did the fine job of bringing Tim to this world. No, there wasn’t? Oh…
And of course, modern health services orientated at using medical technologies to save lives and enhance human welfare are not the target of some ultra-fundamentalist anti-abortionists in America, who engaged in a wholesome and well-mannered expression of ideological differences with George Tiller last year in Wichita, Kansas. But I digress.
Even before the controversial ad was aired, FOX News (or as some like to call it, America’s right wing Propaganda Machine) was already dedicating airtime on “discussion” of the issue. Various statements excreted from the NPO which paid for the ad are discussed, and the “message” that the ad was trying to send was contended. Google Trends showed that interest in “Tim Tebow” during the Superbowl period was sufficient to surpass “Haiti earthquake”. Three million dollars was enough to buy enough coverage to divert the attention of American audiences from one of the largest humanitarian crises in recent times to a dead issue pushed forth by a religious group. As Aldo Raine said, “I’d make that (damned good) deal”. Luckily, Canadian search results were less worrisome, and hits on general Superbowl terms, much less those surrounding the abortionist ad, did not come close to interest in the Haitian relief efforts.
The illusion of debate is further propagated by shows like The O’Reilly Factor, where a woman’s rights advocate was torn apart by Bill O’Reilly with regard to her pro-choice message. Look it up on the interwebs to see if old Bill is actually trying to be fair.
This is a typical scenario where the issues are hotly contested because they are hotly contested, not because they are worth contesting.
It has become less about the issues themselves and more about the hype, and it would be a severe misfortune for young and impressionable minds to be brought up in a media environment that promotes such wanton disregard for actual debate in exchange for a focus on hype and diversion from a clearly biased media content provider.