They say the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results.
This morning The Chicago Tribune was wall-to-wall Blagojevich coverage. My personal favorite was an OpEd column titled "Obama's My Pet Goat Moment", which makes the perfectly reasonable comparison that not commenting immediately on a state-level scandal IS just the same as reading a book to preschoolers while the country is attacked and 3000 Americans are killed.
I appreciate that the Trib is the paper of record on the scandal and, as such, has a responsibility to cover the shit out of it. But, I read the entire front section (the "news" section) today and there wasn't one story about that damn senate report.
I am not a professional journalist, so maybe I'm making more out of this senate report than I should be (note: I am NOT making more out of this senate report than I should be). The Tribune, like just about every other news organization in America, seems to have decided that their sole responsibility as powerful pillars of the fourth estate is "to give the people what they want."
The definition of insanity. Check it: when folks stop obsessing over Blagojevich, there will be some intrepid blogger talking about what we ought to be doing about the various and damning criminal activities perpetrated during the Bush years by the Bush administration. And the folks who read the newspaper when there isn't a fat, juicy scandal du jour (folks like me) will be reading those blogs instead of the newspaper, and wondering if the comics and crossword are really worth $35 a month. And somewhere a "real" reporter will be complaining about the damn bloggers and their responsibility for the demise of print journalism.
