Our Insane New Cycle
Quico says: Can you believe that the revelation that Venezuelan army AT4 rocket launchers were found in FARC’s possession is less than one week old!?
After Twittergate, the Ley CDM, the closing of three dozen radio stations, Chávez’s groin injury, Rangel Silva trying to get FARC anti-aircraft weapons, the P.R.-destroying, constitution-defying Electoral Processes Law being passed (boy that one flew under the radar), CNB broadcasting via loudspeaker (wait, doesn’t sound count as a public airwave?!), Lina Ron’s toilet emergency, and the 700 other important-but-not-flashy stories swept under the rug by all this mayhem, the AT4s story already seems positively ancient!
Créelo…it hasn’t even been a week.
There’s just no keeping up.
Sometimes I amuse myself by trying to imagine how the U.S. media might deal with any one story of comparable magnitude stateside – Michael Moore leads tear-gas raid against FoxNews! or Federal elections commission to Gerrymander all congressional districts nationwide to favor democrats! or Attorney General calls for Michelle Malkin to be jailed! – can you imagine?!
Any one of those would get wall-to-wall coverage on the cable news channels for weeks on end, setting off a constitutional crisis and a spate of resignations. Here, we’re expected to take all that in in a single week…plus do things like laundry and brushing our teeth as well…it’s not possible, I tell you.
Our news cycle is as hyperactive as our presi. Amid the ongoing crackdown on the media, the government fails to grasp that the way you really screw the papers is by…being boring!
Seriously, a government that generates this volume of news is, objectively speaking, a journalistic God send…bad for sanity, granted…but Venezuelan newsrooms don’t know the meaning of the term “slow news day”.
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