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Our Embarrassing Press Corps: President Obama’s ISIS Q&A at the G20

November 16, 2015 by Spencer Critchley

One trivial question after another, ignoring one substantive answer after another.

Obama & Putin at the G20 in Antalya, Turkey
Photo by Pete Souza, The White House

In the near aftermath of what’s been called France’s 9/11, all the U.S. press corps in Antalya wanted to know about was whether President Obama thought he had looked tough enough, or whether he somehow had not considered a bonehead-obvious idea. You can see the whole embarrassing spectacle here (Q&A begins at 5:43).

And after Obama patiently explained how grownups think about difficult issues, they’d ask the same childish questions again.

Why?

  1. Because those are the questions that uninformed people ask
  2. A lot of uninformed people are watching
  3. So we should ask the questions they want asked.

And that’s how far too many reporters, who I’m sure are convinced they’re only serving the public, have made it their job to keep the public uninformed.

Filed Under: Journalism, Politics & Society

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Spencer Critchley says

    November 17, 2015 at 11:40 am

    Good point, thanks for sharing that.

  2. Bobak Mosharaf says

    November 16, 2015 at 4:24 pm

    Dan Carlin recently discussed this in his podcast Common Sense Ep. 298 @ 26:56

    “…it’s a vicious circle, because what happens is the media dumbs everything down thinking you’re not smart enough for it, and then because your brain matter is not being challenged you become used to it you acquiesce to it, and then it feeds back to the media who thinks ‘they can’t even handle what we’re feeding them now…'”

  3. Bobak Mosharaf says

    November 16, 2015 at 4:18 pm

    Dan Carlin recently discussed this in his podcast Common Sense
    ( 26:56)

    “…it’s a vicious circle, because what happens is the media dumbs everything down thinking you’re not smart enough for it, and then because your brain matter is not being challenged you become used to it you acquiesce to it, and then it feeds back to the media who thinks ‘they can’t even handle what we’re feeding them now…'”

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