Our News Media: The Max Powers Way

Homer: There are 3 ways of doing things.  The right way, the wrong way, and the Max Powers way.
Bart: Isn't that still the wrong way?
Homer: Yeah, but faster!

I was reminded of this Simpsons quote (since all of life can be summed up in Simpsons quotes) after watching both CNN and Fox News butcher the Supreme Court ruling last Thursday.

Now, I hate to make a really big deal over what amounted to a 2-7 minute hiccup but it's just such a perfect illustration of what's wrong with our news media today.  Be first.  At all costs.  Accuracy is a distant secondary concern.  It's bad enough that these 24-hour "news" channels present their own spin as fact, but now they're not even waiting to see what the facts are.  And the worst part is that they will learn nothing from this.  NBC and CBS were embarrassed in 2000 when they called Florida for Gore too early, and both vowed to do a more careful job in waiting for results before reporting on them.  Now they had all the facts in their hand but just couldn't wait the 3 minutes for someone to actually read through the decision before reporting on it.  Seriously, do we really need to actually see the on-location reporter reading the decision on the air?  Whatever happened to determining the facts and then deciding the best way to present them to the public?  Is this a novel idea, or hopelessly retro?

On another note, this decision surprised me in another way.  On Wednesday night I thought to myself "well, one way or another, this will all be over tomorrow" - it will be upheld or it won't but either way we can move on.  Little did I know that there would be another way.  Upheld, seemingly handing the President and Democrats a  victory, but labeled a tax, which is red meat for Republicans in an election year.

For what it's worth (very, very little) I believe the Supreme Court made the right call. As much as Democrats  tried to call it something else, it really is just a tax/penalty and thus well within Congress' rights.