The major newspaper in a city where government is struggling to save the American economy today treats us to a long takeout on rumors about the sexual preferences of Jack Valenti, a minor political figure half a century ago.
The Washington Post headline reveals "Valenti's Sexuality Was Topic For FBI: Under Pressure, LBJ Let Hoover's Agents Investigate Top Aide" and is based on "Previously confidential FBI files."
Why so much in such fulsome detail? The Post sayeth not, offering no relevance or connection to current events while reporting on dirt amassed by J. Edgar Hoover's minions about Lyndon Johnson's aide who went on to become the chief flack for the movie industry as president of the Motion Picture Association of America.
Hoover, who obsessively documented the sexual doings of political figures, no doubt had dossiers on thousands of them, using the excuse of "national security" to compile material that would blackmail presidents of both parties into keeping him in office.
Today's "news" is a sour reminder of those bad old days and brings back memories of the good-natured but politically unimportant Valenti, who died two years ago.
I knew him in passing as affable man of self-deprecating charm. At a social gathering, while selecting the movie star to play oneself in a biopic, the vertically challenged, far-from-handsome Valenti sighed, "I guess they'd have to get Mickey Rooney to play me."
Media critics may want the Washington Post to explain the news value of rooting around in old FBI files to report rumors about a man like that on a subject nobody considers scandalous in a time when government has serious work to do.
Showing posts with label news values. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news values. Show all posts
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Monday, December 10, 2007
Nine-Year-Old Scoop
The Drudge Report works in wondrous ways.
The banner this morning, under a picture of Mike Huckabee wagging his finger, is 'Take This Nation Back for Christ' leading to a news report of his speech at a Southern Baptist Convention. The small type notes it was made in 1998.
Click through, and you get the story from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, making the then-governor sound as if he wants, not to be President, but Pastor-in-Chief of the nation.
"The reason we have so much government is because we have so much broken humanity," it quotes him as saying. "And the reason we have so much broken humanity is because sin reigns in the hearts and lives of human beings instead of the Savior...
"Government knows it does not have the answer, but it's arrogant and acts as though it does. Church does have the answer but will cowardly deny that it does and wonder when the world will be changed...
"I didn't get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives."
The provenance of this Drudge scoop is suggested by the fact that the speech was made in Salt Lake City, where reporters were given copies of a book Huckabee had written as well as one titled "Mormonism Unmasked," exposing the beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Cui bono to make Huckabee look like a religious nut? Or, in today's world, would his supporters consider the story a plus?
The banner this morning, under a picture of Mike Huckabee wagging his finger, is 'Take This Nation Back for Christ' leading to a news report of his speech at a Southern Baptist Convention. The small type notes it was made in 1998.
Click through, and you get the story from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, making the then-governor sound as if he wants, not to be President, but Pastor-in-Chief of the nation.
"The reason we have so much government is because we have so much broken humanity," it quotes him as saying. "And the reason we have so much broken humanity is because sin reigns in the hearts and lives of human beings instead of the Savior...
"Government knows it does not have the answer, but it's arrogant and acts as though it does. Church does have the answer but will cowardly deny that it does and wonder when the world will be changed...
"I didn't get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives."
The provenance of this Drudge scoop is suggested by the fact that the speech was made in Salt Lake City, where reporters were given copies of a book Huckabee had written as well as one titled "Mormonism Unmasked," exposing the beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Cui bono to make Huckabee look like a religious nut? Or, in today's world, would his supporters consider the story a plus?
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