US News Media Embarrasses itself

and Obama schools them albeit very gently

Kudos to Think Progress for picking up on this:

In a little-noticed aside during last week’s jobs forum, President Obama criticized the media for focusing on trivial issues, specifically targeting some in the White House press corps who interviewed him during his trip to China. “Not one of them asked me about Asia. Not one of them asked me about the economy,” Obama said. “I was asked several times about had I read Sarah Palin’s book.” Obama laughed. “True!”

Sometimes it’s the apparently little things that say the most. The President of the USA was in China doing important stuff and he doesn’t get one question about it or other serious issues, foreign or domestic from the the American Press. Americans may be used to this level of trivialization but to this Brit the whole thing is absolutely mind numbing. Not every question has to be monumental but surely the job of the press is to attempt to gather information that sheds light on the important matters of our time, not follow the latest shiny object.

The truth of the matter is, that the US press actually thinks that it is more important than the people they cover and that they should get to decide what and who is the story. In other countries the events dictate the coverage. So Chuck, Chip, David and Anthea, please start doing your job. You are meant to be providing the first draft of history and there are no do overs or second chances. Please take your responsibilities seriously for all of our sakes.