Spin Morphs Into Accepted Fact
Mike Hashimoto, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, gives yet another spin on the John Edwards' affair. He is still steamed that the so-called mainstream media failed to investigate or report the rumors regarding Edwards' affair for over nine months. He states as fact not needing any evidence, "This never would have happened had the candidate in question been, oh, Giuliani or Thompson or Huckabee -- you know, Republican also-rans." He may be right, he may be wrong. Conjecture is conjecture. But the conservative wingnuts have already set this particular spin into concrete.
As usual, reader "Rawlins" offers the best perspective about this story and what it says about mainstream bias. He points out that "this is the 6th thread in a row posted on the blog about the Edwards affair and it is feeling a little like when the Dick Cheney shooting was the butt of one too many jokes for one too many days."
Newsflash: Olympic Entertainment is Computer-Enhanced
Reporters reflexively look for an angle to a story. Sometimes they reach too far. Jeffrey Weiss, in The Dallas Morning News Religion blog, expresses his surprise to learn that the Olympic opening ceremony display of fireworks in the shape of footprints marching across Beijing were aided by computer special effects. Weiss calls it a "fraud." Sigh. In the comments section, readers quickly told Weiss that the NBC announcers pointed out that the visual effect was computer-generated. No fraud. No story.
We should keep in mind that the Olympics opening ceremony is pure entertainment spectacular. It is television. Computer-enhanced entertainment is becoming ubiquitous. Movie-goers take not only special effects but computer-generated characters for granted. Couch-potato football fans no longer can get along without the computer-generated first-down line. Viewers have come to understand that not everything they see on their TV screen is "real." The story this time is the sheer spectacle of the Olympics opening ceremony. Even if the announcer sometimes fails to point out exactly how all the tricks work, a magic act is not necessarily a fraud. This year, the Olympics opening ceremony was nothing less than magical.
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