The Media's Stunted Perspective
By Vincent Fiore
January 23, 2007
As happens with most anything even remotely political these days, the mainstream media gets it and decides to present a picture that does not represent the actual importance -- meaning news -- of the event. In essence, it might be viewed as the liberal "imprimatur."
Let's take Sunday's NFL playoff championship games between the Chicago Bears versus the New Orleans Saints, and the Indianapolis Colts versus the New England Patriots.
Unlike New York Daily News personality/sports writer Mike Lupica -- who fancied himself to be a Bush-basher if only for a day -- I will not be commenting upon something of which I know little of. (web site)
Instead, let's talk about race and the utter sanctification that the media-at-large bestows upon it, and its ceaseless attempts at "colorizing" the news when able.
Both Chicago and Indianapolis won their games. But immediately after the first paragraph from two separate news stories from the AP, the usual media-imprimatur took form:
"He took Dungy along for the ride, helping his coach finally get to the big game and make some history along the way. In two weeks, Dungy will join Chicago 's Lovie Smith in the Super Bowl, where together they will be the first black head coaches to meet in the NFL's biggest game." (web site)
"Lovie Smith became the first black head coach to reach the NFL's marquee game in its 41-year history and roughly four hours later, his good pal and mentor Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts joined him." (web site)
So what is the hoped-for media perspective here? That two superb football coaches managed to secure a spot in organized sports greatest spectacle, the Super Bowl? Or is it that "blacks advanced another step today in culturally bereft and ever-prejudiced America by...template the media is looking to forward?
Surely, we have seen this time and again, and some that read this may be saying, "Hey, so what? We know what the media is up to, and we don't buy it." That's fine for most of us, but a good plurality of people don't get it, and the plurality I speak of is practically everyone outside the demographic of white males, ages one to 100.
Can anyone give me a valid reason why it is necessary in this day and age to keep looking for markers that "anyone but white males" has crossed over? Does not this type of behavior promote separatism and race-consciousness?
What's wrong with just trumpeting the marvelous efforts by both coaches? Are they not Americans first, and black second? Why does this concept seem not only foreign to the media, but to so many of these "minority" groups themselves?
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