THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA is often inconsistent in covering stories. They gave us wall-to-wall coverage when George W. Bush’s National Guard service came under scrutiny, but suddenly made themselves scarce when over two hundred Vietnam veterans pointed out hole after hole in John Kerry’s service narrative. When Rush Limbaugh ran into legal problems surrounding his addiction to painkillers, we heard breathless updates on subpoenas and court orders, but when Eason Jordan revealed his predilection to slandering the U.S. military, again the press pulled a disappearing act.
Michael LeBoeuf once commented that the elements of the perfect fiction would involve religion, royalty, sex, and mystery–and then boiled it down to one sentence: “My God,” said the Queen, “I’m pregnant. I wonder who did it?” Is there a grand-unified theory of media interest and if so, what elements need to come together to make the perfect journalistic storm?
