Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Tribune writes:
One estimate has 8,000 TV and radio reporters and support staff from around the world in London covering the nuptials. CNN alone is said to be sending 50 U.S. staffers to complement 75 from its London bureau.
It’s bound to be better television than the federal government’s budget negotiations. In any case, it provides a momentary diversion from the Middle East, Japan and whatever the next crisis turns out to be.
“There are a lot of other more important stories going on in the world. That’s clear,” said Jon Banner, the executive producer of ABC World News.” “But it’s nice every once in a while to cover a story where nobody gets hurt. It’s a celebration.”
This would seem like an obviously obscene waste of time and resources, with no plausible journalistic rationale.
Then again, as someone who has to watch the corporate media more closely than most, it’s worth pointing out that there’s very little news on the TV news anyway. Behold the results of an actual Nexis search of nightlynewscasts:
Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding guestlist
NBC News Transcripts, April 10, 2011 Sunday, 422 wordsBob Dylan performs in China and Vietnam
NBC News Transcripts, April 10, 2011 Sunday, 132 wordsVerdict may come tomorrow in Barry Bonds perjury trial
NBC News Transcripts, April 10, 2011 Sunday, 337 words
Gas prices continue to rise
NBC News Transcripts, April 10, 2011 Sunday, 59 wordsWildfires in Texas
NBC News Transcripts, April 10, 2011 Sunday, 47 wordsNew theory about serial killer on Long Island
NBC News Transcripts, April 10, 2011 Sunday, 402 wordsTiger Woods comes on strong at the Masters
NBC News Transcripts, April 10, 2011 Sunday, 144 wordsJapan citizens frustrated in aftermath of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster find an escape in baseball
NBC News Transcripts, April 10, 2011 Sunday, 332 words
To be fair, there were some stories of actual substance.
And there was also this:
Results of peanut butter sandwich contest
NBC News Transcripts,April 10, 2011 Sunday,418 words
Royals are but targets- we can only hope.
“[N]obody gets hurt”?
A half-million Brits take to the streets to condemn heartless cuts to vital gummint programs, and how much is being pumped out to pay for this plutocratic pomp and circumstance?
Hard to find a more apt description of “an obscene waste of resources”, don’t you think?
â┚¬Ã…“The use of the Queen, in a dignified capacity, is incalculable. Without her in England, the present English government would fail and pass away.â┚¬Ã‚Â
“So wrote Walter Bagehot in his seminal work, The English Constitution, in 1867 on the role occupied by the monarch at the very apex of the state.”
“What then will be the political impact of the sordid revelations surrounding the royal family in the wake of the collapse of the trial of former butler, Paul Burrell?”
“Of dignity there is not a trace. Lurid stories have surfaced of the late Princess Diana’s midnight trips to meet lovers dressed only in her fur and pearls, gay orgies on the royal yacht Britannia, kinky sex involving at least one royal and, more seriously, that Prince Charles covered up the homosexual rape of one of his staff by another…”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/nov2002/royl-n21.shtml
In Karl Radek’s post, I guess Walter Bagehot never got word of the French Revolution in which the monarchy of that country was beheaded including the children of the royales. The French seemingly got by after the monarchy went south. So why not merry ole’ England?
I read an article about “Screw the Royal Wedding…” and there was a commenter who said something like “we need this distraction from the chaos of the world for a few minutes.” I said this:
This is insane, what in the hell do you mean we need distraction from chaos? Why? There are millions and millions of children and infants who die every year from malnutrition and starvation. Half the population of the world lives on $2 dollars per day, that’s about 3.5 billion human beings. At least 2 billion people have no access to potable water. Dictatorships in oppressive regimes kill thousands of innocent people every year. The world is losing resources all the while by greedy corporations looking to make a buck, their one goal is to increase profits, with no thought to the environment, their workers, their country. There is an assault on the reproductive rights of women going on in the House of Representatives initiated by the majority party, the Rethugnuts as I like to call them. And in the state of Florida no less than 18 bills having to do with women’s rights are being discussed. Other states are chipping away at the rights of workers and the rights of women at an astounding pace, and unfortunately there are twice the number of Rethugnut Party’s governors and legislators than Democrats in the states.
And you want to sit back and be distracted????It is not a good thing. Inaction has been our main problem for the last thirty years, at least as far as progressives go. It cannot be said of corporate lobbyists and the Chamber of Congress and their wealthy advocates and their Rethugnut friends and the conservatives and all their misinformation. They have all but destroyed our democracy and the middle class and are continuing in that endeavor, spurred on by their Supreme Court who appointed Bush in 2000 and then gave inanimate institutions the status of personhood with all the rights of a live human being including influencing elections of our leaders. And your solution is to look the other way for a while? We have a lot of work to do, distraction is not a solution. When your house is on fire, what do you say, oh..this is just too much chaos, I need to be distracted from it, or do you set about attempting to stop the fire or at the very least save your pets and maybe some of your prized possessions?
This is a relevant article that I agree with.
And just for good measure, this is what Judge Lewis Kaplan said at the trial of the convicted terrorist Ghailani:
â┚¬Ã…“I have not previously expressed any opinion as to whether Mr. Ghailani’s treatment by the United States was illegal and I do not do so now. That question is not before me. What I will say is this: Whatever Mr. Ghailani suffered at the hands of the CIA and others in our government, and however unpleasant the conditions of his confinement, the impact on him pales in comparison to the suffering and the horror that he and his confederates caused. For every hour of pain and discomfort that he suffered, he caused a thousand-fold more pain and suffering to entirely innocent people.â┚¬Ã‚Â
So the torture of alleged terrorists is no longer to get information, but instead to inflict revenge on him for his alleged victims suffering? And there are no rights for these so called terrorists before they are tried, what if they are innocent? And to add to that Eric Holder recently announced that the Guantanamo detainees will be tried by military commissions and not by civilain courts. This is a mistake unless you are a Rethugnut or a lapsed Democrat, or a Bluedog. How long before law enforcement and the courts start to loosen the Miranda warnings and instead treat you, an American citizen as if you are guilty in the name of their fighting terrorism, just as they do to the detainees at Guantanamo?
And you want to be put to sleep in distraction and not allow it to bother you.
I see what our problem is, citizen disengagement, that is killing us and our democracy. I wish you would wake the **** up!!!
Want to really get pissed at the Royal wedding?They snubbed Obama.Dont like him.Or maybe his invite got lost in the mail :)
So yeah the world sucks.Lots of ugly.But we cant immerse ourselves 24-7 in ugly.It is debilitating.Everybody likes to smile at some silly diversion once in a while.
Hate to throw this in but……Just watched the royal wedding.Anyone notice there was nary an Afro Englishmen in the crowd?