"Did you notice the contrasting media responses to comedian Stephen Colbert's announcement that he plans to get his factually-challenged TV namesake on both the Democratic and Republican ballots for the South Carolina presidential primary? The mainstream Beltway press could barely contain its glee as it cheered the stunt on, lavishing all sorts of media attention on Colbert, and basking in the entertainment industry glow that his act brought to the White House campaign trail.
By contrast, it was mostly left to non-traditional online outlets to strike a skeptical chord; to make the grown-up observation that perhaps this wasn't the best idea. Over at the Huffington Post, Rachel Sklar, a major-league Colbert fan (as am I), wrote that the comedian's candidacy comes at the wrong time....And the media website Gawker made a similar point, although with a bit more snark:
'Now, we don't want to sound all imperious and sh*t, and we get the idea, add a little levity to the race, distract the cranky reporters, take everyone down a peg or two. It's good clean fun. But there's a $46 billion war on, we hear. And! Wildfires! Drought!...'
Both feared that Colbert would be an unnecessary distraction. Agreed. But the Colbert candidacy becomes a distraction only if the press allows it to. And the sad fact is the press already has allowed it to, because the press literally drives itself to distraction on the campaign trail. That's not an unfortunate side effect of the process. That's the goal....
The press already seems to do everything it can to avoid covering campaign substance. Instead, it pursues trivia such as haircuts, and laughs, and cleavage, and parking tickets, and head movements, and marital sleeping habits, and chiseled good looks, and cats, and accents. It's clear that the allure of a saccharine story like Colbert's running gag is simply too tempting.
That's because the press has decided to cover presidential candidates as celebrities, as personalities. This media phenomenon became enshrined during the 2000 contest, when the press announced that presidential campaigns were no longer about how candidates might function as presidents; what they might actually do as commander in chief. Instead, campaigns were about personalities -- which candidate was fun to be around and which one was authentic....
The Colbert allure also stems from the fact that too many journalists see themselves as being part of the entertainment business, not in the information business. They relate to Colbert and they want to be part of his yuk-yuk world. They want to blur the lines between news and infotainment. And they want to show everyone that they get the joke.
Why else would NBC's venerable Meet the Press invite Colbert on for an awkward 15-minute interview?...ABC's Nightline found time to cover the Colbert candidacy. Yet Nightline has not found time during the last six weeks to cover the war from Iraq. I'm just sayin'....
...sometimes I worry that journalists think voters take elections as un-seriously as the journalists themselves do....In fact, when one of Colbert's staffers contacted the owner of a South Carolina beauty salon, which had been featured in the press as being a hotbed of local political discussion, and asked if Colbert could visit the salon in advance of the primary, the owner was emphatic: No. 'This is a serious issue for us,' she told the producer....
The (New York)Times blog urged Colbert to keep his campaign going 'for the sheer fun of it.' It's true, the press loves to have fun on the campaign trail. As one Chicago Tribune reporter assured CNN, 'Everybody is going to cover Stephen Colbert to a certain extent, because it's going to be fun.'
But what about news consumers? After another writer at The Atlantic dissected the possible electoral implications of the Colbert run..., one online commenter beseeched:
'Seriously. Please stop. Please tell your friends in the (mainstream media) to stop.'"
http://mediamatters.org/columns/200710300001?f=h_column
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