News Ain't What It Used to Be

I’m in the panhandle of Nebraska for a couple of days, where the weather is hot as hell, and the politics are redder than a baboon’s ass. That said, this little town had a protest yesterday, about 20 people lining the main drag with signs talking about funding for education and medical care. Interesting and unexpected. I didn’t see any Gaza signs, but I could have missed it. The thumbnail for this post is Dorothy Lynch dressing, made in Nebraska. Main ingredient: tomato soup. Runza is another Nebraska delicacy.

Switching topics, it seems like people are finally totally disgusted with the genocide in Gaza. (Guardian live feed.) I’m wondering if it is the decision of major media to finally show a picture or two of an emaciated child that pushed things over the edge. I scan the front pages of the big papers and they’re now showing really graphic photos.

When I was a kid, this was regular fare for major media. The evening news and the news magazines (we had Life and Newsweek) would regularly show kids who were dying of starvation in far-off lands. From my perspective, curated social media feeds, right-wing media, and mainstream journalistic timidity about Gaza has kept much of the ugliness out of view. For example, Fox has basically nothing about starvation on their home page right now, and the only story is about the danger to journalists there.

Anyway, people see the starvation of children as a revolting and ugly thing, to state the obvious. So, Israel has gone out of its way to harass journalists, and sometimes kill them, in their quest to wipe Gaza and its people off of the map. Now, the bare fact of mass murder of children has finally been revealed, and people don’t like it. We should make Trump own this, but of course we’re so wrapped around the axle of “anti-semitism” meaning “even the mildest criticism of Israel” that who knows what’s going to happen here. I searched for “Schumer Gaza starvation” and got nothing. I guess he thinks he can just hide out until it’s over. I don’t see the winning strategy here.

While I’m talking about journalism and ugly things, there were a lot of ugly facts about the Vietnam War that hit Life, Newsweek and the nightly news. The military has done an excellent job of keeping journalists from seeing that in more recent wars.