Truth Killed by Reality TV

The utterly unconvincing comb-over of the Vice President is another day's blog rant.

So it turns out that this whole monkey business with someone crashing the White House dinner was a complete reality TV attention stunt, and this is the second one in as many months after balloon boy.

The worth-reading Times article on the hoax says that this one, actively promoted by networks, is the logical, natural outgrowth of a culture that has hundreds of would-be reality celebrities fighting for attention all at once.

But with their apparent ability to trick the news media and the White House, why even have truth anymore? The news media apparently believes that entertainment and truth are the same thing.

That we are quickly losing our corps of professional journalists to layoffs means that there are fewer fact checkers, and more lone guns. People with blogs. Dudes with cell phone cameras. Folks with little to no training in journalism, who act accordingly.

I'm pretty sure that if a terrorist attack the scale of 9/11 happened tomorrow, the networks would probably be racing to get cameras taping the first season of "Terrorist Flight School, hosted by Khalid Sheik Muhammad" or "Suicide Bomb This Building."

I think you'd agree that this is getting ridiculous. The biggest favor you can do for America is to not watch these bullshit-parades. Don't give any of these people the fame they'll stop at nothing to get, and you will discourage all of them.