A Rant about the Media--The Puppy-Kicking Doctrine

I think I've found a way to explain what I hate, hate, hate, about today's news media, and I'm calling it "The Puppy-Kicking Doctrine". The idea relates to the idea of "balance" in the point of view presented in discussion of any news topic, and it goes something like this:

Whenever a rather awful thing takes place, the only way to discuss it in a really balanced way is to show both sides of the argument. Even if the topic is kicking puppies. Even if the numbers showed that maybe one in a thousand people thought puppies should be kicked, the media has to show someone from each side. Therefore, the "Kicking puppies is wrong" side will be represented by a teenager from PETA who has never tested make-up on herself, and the "Kicking puppies is awesome" side will be represented by an engaging and spirited man in his 90's who insists that kicking puppies is the key to eternal youth.

I think Pat Buchanan is a puppy-kicker. Liz Cheney? Puppy-kicker. (I don't want to say what I think her old man does to puppies.) In any topic presented on cable news, the trick is to spot the "puppy-kicker". Randall Terry is a puppy-kicker. Ann Coulter is the Cruella De Ville of puppy-kicking.

Some pundits, who even have their own shows, are puppy-kickers. You could call them "paid puppy-kickers." They kick puppies for money, even if they don't have anything against the puppy in question. Glenn Beck would kick a puppy for ratings, even if it made him cry. Bill O'Reilly would insist the puppy was a vicious, rabid, devil-eyed, fully-grown wolf-hound, and that he did everyone a favor by kicking the puppy--and he'd kick it again. Rush Limbaugh would kick the puppy before his broadcast and eat it on-air. Hannity would explain that puppies have always been liberal and a little suspicious and beady-eyed. And he'd kick them during commercial break as well as live. And Joe Scarborough might say it hurts him more than the puppy, "but darn it, Mika, I think the puppy is getting kicked." Lou Dobbs might explain that the puppy was foreign, and was going to steal his stuff.

The "puppy" might be human rights, civil liberties, a murder victim, a rape victim, the poor, immigrants, minorities, women looking for quality, etc. But no matter how blameless the "puppy" of the story is, or at least, how unobjectionable--the media will find a puppy-kicker, and that view will have exactly equal validity in terms of coverage.

And that is what I hate about the media.