Some More, Please

by Rebecca Schoenkopf

I listen to all the Mel Gibson tapes, and the lawyers’ takes on their admissibility. I am the reason the Huffington Post steals content and overpromises so gloriously in its hyperventilating headlines. I’m the reason every purported journalist in the world (except—of course!—that natty Shep Smith) aims weapons they really aren’t ready to fire. I’m probably even the reason for Steve Doocy’s sweet “special”-ness on Fox & Friends, because, honestly, I am to blame.

I am the 24-hour news cycle.

I can not get enough with the clicky-clicky. I am the swarm. I click on every update, every pundit’s yammer, every not-yet-informed take while we wait for confirmation. And this week I’ve had two glorious stories, two really marvelous ones, and the Media has won.

Shirley Sherrod

I can’t get enough of Shirley Sherrod—luckily, neither can anyone else—nor the benighted City of Bell.

The City of Bell, for our out-of-town readers, has been the focus of Journalism this week, when two writers for the L.A. Times got wind of a District Attorney investigation into compensation in the small, poor city in southeast L.A. county. It seems in addition to paying themselves almost a cool hundred thousand per year (instead of the usual $400 a month) by sitting on fakey city boards, the City Council accidentally is paying the city manager almost $800K and the assistant city manager almost $400,000. The city manager also gets a contractual 12 percent annual raise, so in like two or three years (? MATH!) he should be making $1.1 million.

And don’t forget the pensions!

So the people of Bell, they feel somewhat irked by this, and the City Council is spinning so fast we should put meters on them so the DWP could credit our bills. They’re all, oh, we are totally going to investigate this, and have city staff prepare a report!

No? Maybe we might take a pay cut? How about like 20 percent? So only like $80 thousand a year?

And the people, they howl and gnash their teeth, it is the wrong time to get caught, it is not cute right now, it’s not laughed off, there will be blood on the dance floor. And so the terrible fellows of the City Council dance faster and demand the city manager resign in disgrace! And the police chief too (who makes one and a half times more than L.A.’s police chief), and maybe whatshisname as well, their former City Council member who resigned, but is now pulling down $96 thousand as the assistant coordinator of the food bank, can they still fire him? They will be happy to fire him, please let them, oh man they are shitting their pants.

And it is amazing, and I love journalism so much, when people do it. We should have some more please.

And then there is more journalism, and you would assume, at first, that since it is the national media, the national political media, that truth would not be served nor justice done, and you would be surprised to find you’re wrong.

You can’t possibly be reading this and not already aware of what happened to Ms. Sherrod this week—Andrew Breitbart’s either malicious or negligent defamation of that nice lady, the overquick capitulation of Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack in laying down the hammer, and then the unexpected turn of events: the news media actually beating back the rightwing Disinformation! This was followed by a unanimous chorus demanding Vilsack’s head in place of Sherrod’s, until Vilsack backpedaled right quick and the world was good again. And I forgave Tom Vilsack as soon as the words were out of his mouth, because I’m Catholic and he was sorry.

It was astounding watching even such bloated ticks on the skin of humanity as Jonah Goldberg and Eric Erickson say Sherrod’s scalp looked like a shabby one—and that was before any of us had access to the full tape (which like me you doubtless watched). In this instance, they forewent their usual disingenuousness and backed off from the shameful actions of Breitbart—which was surprising because his actions were no grosser than the way he railroaded the nice community organizers at ACORN, and they’re still applauding that one to this day. I’m reminded of my mama pooh-poohing my admiration for Ed Rollins when he said the Willie Horton ads were despicable. “As far as Willie Horton goes, everybody, left or right, knows it was a disgusting thing to do,” she said then. “It was no skin off his nose to say so, and he gets to look like a straight-talker.” But I wouldn’t have expected Goldberg or Erickson to know so, because they are not everybody; they’re thugs and bullies and somehow froggish specimens, and I’d have expected them to keep shouting louder until the Daily Lie becomes gospel. (Of course, Erickson’s greater point was what the Tea Party assholes have been screeching all week: that the Left is always victimizing those poor racists by pointing out that they’re racist, and so to the ramparts, comrades!) And yes, I’m feeling a little ad hominem today. Why don’t you hire someone to punch me?

And now the story is done, a breathless whirlwind later, so quick! And I am waiting for the next outrage, which is harder for me to latch onto, because I don’t watch TV news.

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