Media Outlets Shame Themselves With (lack of) Coverage of Obama Climate Speech

Predicting what our progeny will think is important about our current world may be a fool's game, that is until you consider climate change.  The post-Industrial Revolution carbon dioxide in the atmosphere isn't in a hurry to go anywhere and we continue inject more at an accelerating rate. Greater amounts of heat will be retained by the atmosphere and later generations (emphasis on the plural) will experience changes in weather, ecosystems and civilization. It doesn't require any great predictive powers to believe that our descendants will consider our action, and lack of, to climate change as our most important legacy

That's my guess for the future. As for the present it is obvious that the great and little minds of the media empires rank climate change as not being very newsworthy.  Yesterday, President gave the most frank and forceful speech by any U.S. president on the matter, a speech that also announced significant  concrete executive action. Yet both while he was talking and immediately afterwards CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, Fox and even MSNBC barely covered it, the only exception was the Weather Channel. When I flipped on CNN rather than see the speech or even talking yahoos dissembling it I was transported back to my time in San Diego in the mid-80s because CNN was breathlessly reporting on a car chase on Southern California freeway. The media empires website's were just as negligent. NBCnews.com relegated the speech it to the secondary sidebar items, but at least it was near the top of the page. But that's much better than CBSnews.com where it was buried way down the page in small font, Paula Deen was rated as more newsworthy. An hour later, CNN.com did post the story at the top, along with video. But they had to add a truthinews bit that asked if "Americans care about climate change". Yes, the actual facts only matter to CNN of they think the public cares. Many thanks to Stephen Colbert for coming up with that term just in time. Come to think of it, maybe that is the problem in a nutshell. The importance of an issue to the public and the media who wants their attention is not based on the actually events, risks and facts but on the narcissism of the viewers.

Quick thoughts on what happened on Jan 12

 First of all and most importantly, there was a convergence of message from the President and Jon Stewart:
"But what we can’t do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on each other. That we cannot do. As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let's use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together." President Obama.

"It would be really nice if the ramblings of crazy people didn’t in any way resemble how we actually talk to each other on TV...It's important for us to watch our rhetoric,if for no other reason than to draw a better distinction between the manifestos of paranoid madmen and what passes for acceptable political and pundit speak." Jon Stewart

Palin began, much earlier than I expected, her demise. The cynical ploy of trying to upstage the president's message backfired badly.  Later, Colbert hilariously disassembled her and cultists followers.

In short, Obama was the President, Palin solidified her position as the Lindsey Lohan of politics.

Update: seemed like I hit on the narrative that developed on Jan 13, wide-spread praise of Obama from across the political spectrum, dismissal of the pretender.

Obama's speech on the GOM spill

Bob Cesca writes what I've been thinking about Pres. Obama's Oval office address and the reactions to it..
Many of the comments in response pretty much prove his point.

Update: Jon Stewart did a montage of Presidents back to Nixon call for energy independence, you can see it at the Daily Show site. Unfortunately I think he missed the mark on it by making it look like a failure of just leadership and ignoring the lack of will among the American public on this issue. And based on comments I've read today on the clip, that's the attitude of many people.
Lets be honest, Americans lack the collective will to do anything about it. Congress doesn't do anything about energy because "thou shall not ask anything of the American people". Most of the American public (dare I say most of comfortable developed world) acts like and expects to be treated like spoiled children.

And deep down we know it.

'nother update: the fickle punditry changes their minds, what a shock.