Reviewing Books I Haven't Read

I admire Representative Nancy Pelosi, but her kid seems sort of worthless. Former NBC News producer Alexandra Pelosi, who was responsible in part for crappy network coverage of Presidential races, now deigns to tell us what's wrong with the media's coverage of Presidential races. For $25 bucks, over 280 large print pages.

Here's Pelosi's publisher, quoting Pelosi from her new book, Sneaking Into The Media Circus:

"Every election cycle journalists defy the theory of evolution, living sequestered on a bus, with no sleep, few showers, and tons of junk food, going town-to-town listening to the same speech over and over. You're stuck in this dysfunctional relationship between the news organization that has you there to do their bidding and the campaign that is trying to co-opt you."

...

And herein lies Pelosi's driving point: politicians and journalists don't trust each other, and so, in election coverage and in politics in general, the press is utterly hamstrung. Since the candidates never say anything unscripted and the journalists have to make nice in order to maintain access, modern presidential campaigns have become little more than media events. Politicians and journalists alike are going through the motions, and the voters have no idea who the candidates really are.

Boo frickin' hoo. Those nasty news organizations trying to get their employees to do their bidding, and those bastard pols trying to get favorable publicity.

Here's a hint: If you don't want to do the bidding of a news organization and you don't want a candidate to try to co-opt you, don't follow a fucking candidate around on a bus and don't accept employment from a news organization that wants you to follow the fucking candidate. Instead of writing a book rehashing the supposed horrors of the campaign circus, do some reporting and tell your readers all the things about the candidates you think they need to know. If you're not just blowing smoke up our asses, that is.

Maybe it's the three-page chapters, the full-page Britney Spears quotes, and the reference to Congressman "Barnie Frank" on page 3, but I suspect that Pelosi neither knows nor cares who the candidates really are, and doesn't care whether voters do either.

To be fair, the Index indicates that Pelosi spends four pages discussing the Swift Boat Liars and only three pages each on two slightly less important campaign issues, "Abu Ghraib prison" and "Starsky & Hutch premiere party." And she apparently addresses the influence of press baron "Rupert Murdock" on the last election.

I have no doubt this book reveals a great deal about the current state of political journalism -- just not what the Free Press and Pelosi believe it does.

For Further Reading: Greg Beato already has performed a magnificent beatdown on Pelosi's prior work.