Chris Penningroth’s Weltanschauung

    I’ve tried in other places to explain some of the issues I’ve had with legacy media (what other bloggers refer to as ‘Mainstream Media’ or MSM — the larger daily newspapers, the big three TV networks, and cable TV news).  As usual, Victor Davis Hanson does a much better job rationalizing what I think.  He specifically took on Newsweek, a publication I stopped trusting long before I learned I had to watch the televised news reporters with unhealthy doses of skepticism.    

    I awoke to some interesting news from Scottsdale, AZ this morning.  It turns out the CEO of ReMax Realty bought the HMMWV CNN used during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM for $1 million at this year’s Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction.  The proceeds will go to the Fisher House Foundation, which is a series of houses that give recuperating military folks and their families a place to live during medical treatment. 

    Surprisingly, this effort appears to have been headed by Wolf Blitzer! It looks like he may have taken Lynn Cheney’s chastisement to heart when she asked him if he and CNN wanted America to win the War on Terror. 

    One has to wonder if this is just a stunt from CNN, or if they really mean there’s a sea-change going on from the Ted Turner-Eason Jordan era?

    I’m hoping for the best.  If I see more moves like this out of CNN, it will help.

    Other useful moves would be firing Jack McCafferty, and returning Lou Dobbs to the business section and out of the opinion section. 

    No, I’m not talking about the 1986 hit song by Swedish rock band Europe.  Neither am I talking about the 1980 movie.  I’m talking about today being the last time I’ll ever intentionally watch the MSNBC show hosted by Keith Olbermann.  

    It’s hard to believe there are so many people out there with a national audience who can’t exactly seem to grasp human nature and it’s role in subjects as broad as religion, international relations, politics.  And I thought Lou Dobbs was bad! Olbermann makes Dobbs look objective. 

    Today’s Countdown was even worse than most of the episodes I’ve seen.  It was five minutes of news interspersed with forty-five minutes of anti-evangelical, anti-one-political-party, anti-this, anti-that.  The only break was when Olbermann said "Let’s play Oddball" (an obvious and very wierd spoof on the more tolerable Chris Matthews’ opening "Let’s play Hardball").  He then brought out a series of short clips which I suppose he thought was funny.  The penguin kidnapping clip almost was funny, but he ruined it at the end.  There was absolutely no optimism in the whole hour that I can recall. 

    I only have time to comment on one of the travesties I witnessed this morning.  The whole point of Christianity (evangelicals included) is that we humans are not perfect, we will often be tempted to sin and will fail the test.  Through Christ we have the opportunity for forgiveness, but we know our sins will have temporal repurcussions, these are to be expected; it’s God’s way of disciplining us.  Pastors of very large churches aren’t excepted from this fundamental truth, going all the way back to the Apostle Paul himself (see Romans 7:23 and Galatians 2:17).  If the target of the news subject really is guilty of sin or lawbreaking, I wouldn’t be surprised, nor do I think he doesn’t deserve the treatment he’s receiving from the media.  But Olbermann (and some of his interviews) are taking the attack one step further and claiming that because the Pastor wasn’t perfect, his teachings are not valid.  Ultimately, assuming the message of scripture is untrue because of the imperfection of the messenger is a logical fallacy. 

    I’ll pass Mr Olbermann some classic fighter pilot advice (edited for my family-friendly weblog).  Never pass up an opportunity to keep your mouth shut! I recommend applying that advice to the hour time slot your show normally shows up in. 

    Fox brings good things.  I caught the end of the World Series on Fox, it was nice to watch the hometown win again.

    Then, Megyn Kendall, Kiran Chetry, Alysin Camerota, and Rudi Bakhtiar, all appeared in the space of one hour.  

    Thanks, Messrs Murdoch and Ailes! 

    I wrote an essay elsewhere in cyberspace regarding the problems with the modern media.  It’s nice to see some other people see things the same way.