Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

Maybe I should run for Congress. It seems as though everyone else is. And then I can say I was a candidate for Hawaii’s Congressional seat. It would look good on my resume.

Here’s the official list from the Office of Elections website as of tonight. Everyone’s on it but Rod Tam.

Now, some people don’t know yet that Abercrombie has quit. Do you get bugged by all those computers asking you to sign this or that, or write your Congressperson, or contribute money? I am coming to resent it all. Computers were put on earth for a higher purpose than to dun everyone for contributions. One of those computers at SEIU.org is still confused (thanks to George Fox for the pointer):

Back to the candidates for a moment. Most will get nowhere. Unfortunately, the newspapers will cover only Hanabusa, Case and Djou. When Hawaii Public Radio presented a debate among the candidates on March 15, you’d never know from the Advertiser coverage that anyone besides those three said anything. You’d never know that one came late to the only debate he’s likely to ever be allowed to participate in.

The other participants were only mentioned as having been present in the second from last little paragraph, an afterthought perhaps. They were obviously cluttering up the Advertisers’s photos, so they had to identify everyone in the captions. It would have been awkward to erase them there too.

If we had a true democracy (where victory did not go to those who already have most of the spoils) each candidate would have a fair chance to demonstrate their merit and be elected. In our system, money talks, and the press goes with the money rather than do their best to bring the news to readers.

It was quite a contrast reading the defective coverage of the debate and then, right after that, listening to journalists espousing high ideals at the Plaza Club on March 18. If Peer News gets started before the special election, it will be interesting to me to see if they fall into line with the mainstream and ignore all but the favored three candidates, or if they can provide a true forum for worthy ideas to be exposed and debated. If they can do that, they will easily shame the mainstream media on that point at least.

And if they can do that, think of the dozens of candidates who might crawl out of the woodwork during an election just to get their piece of the media spotlight. Oh, well. I guess there needs to be a line drawn somewhere.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 3/22/2010 09:08:00 PM