In college my roommates and I used to recklessly throw a ball—or a beer bottle or a shoe—around the living room of the tumbledown house we lived in. The game wasn’t over until something in the room was destroyed. Hence the name of the game, "The Play Until Something Gets Destroyed Game."
I was reminded of those nihilistic days as I watched MSNBC take us in three days from being shocked and sorrowful (and a little shocked at just how sorrowful) to muffling our own guilty grumbles: Okay, enough about a TV news guy, however warm, smart and decent.
TV media just doesn’t know a story is over until its subject, living or dead, has been destroyed, along with our good feelings.
I have a different gripe—news that’s in the headlines for a while, then there’s no reporting of the resolution. There are many cases I’ve wondered about where the end of the story simply was never told.
Yes, Diane, that’s another problem, separate but equal.
Tim Russert would have been scathing about how the media handled his death. The coverage shows that the American people “got” him (which is why they liked him) but the media itself never understood what made him so good: say it once, succinctly and eloquently, compel a response, then move the discussion along to stay interesting.
What Jane said. Russert would be appalled.