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Editorial: Obama vs. “So You Think You Can Dance” season six
Posted by Chasse Rehwinkel on 9/14/09 • Categorized as Commentary, Health, Politics
When President Barack Obama concluded his speech on health care in front of a joint session of Congress this past Wednesday, Americans had learned two things.
First, unfortunately, we learned who represents South Carolina’s 2nd district when Congressman Joe Wilson shouted “You lie” during the President’s speech—an outburst that netted the passionate congressman over one million dollars in campaign contributions. But secondly, and much more importantly, the whole of American society was exposed to Obama’s ideas on a comprehensive health care reform plan.
Well, when I say the whole of American society I of course don’t mean those who had been counting down the minutes until “So You Think You Can Dance” season six premiered or those who were absolutely ecstatic about the premise of the new musical comedy “Glee.”
Confused?
Let me share a few tweets with you…
Last Wednesday, September 9, the major television networks’ Twitter accounts were abuzz in preparation for Obama’s speech to Congress.
ABC News advertised the event as “President Obama Calls for End of Partisanship on Health Care Reform,” NBC News tweeted that Obama would be explaining the specifics of his health care reform plan in detail and PBS posted links of news videos so that viewers could “prepare” for the speech.
Both ABC News and CBS News posted excerpts from the President’s speech and links to videos showing the entire address immediately after the event concluded.
Even locally, NBC Chicago, ABC El Paso and CBS Philadelphia tweeted links to their own excerpts and videos from Obama’s historical statement.
Conversely, Fox Broadcasting’s official Twitter account’s major postings on Wednesday previewed the upcoming premiers of “So You Think You Can Dance” season six and “Glee.”
To me, the tweets speak volumes of where Fox is compared to the other major American networks. While, NBC, PBS, CBS and ABC—which pushed back its game show “Wipeout” to a later time in order to carry the Presidential address—decided Obama’s speech was too important not to broadcast live in primetime, Fox felt a worn out reality TV show and a musical “dramedy” trumped arguably the most important political speech of the year, if not the most important of the past few years.
This was the third time this year Fox refused to carry a Presidential Speech from Obama, a fact that is completely unacceptable considering the vast amount of uncertainty that many Americans feel about health care reform.
I know that Fox has been criticized time and again for their conservative leanings, but I guess I’ll risk sounding like an echo in order to air out my grievances.
I don’t care if a network doesn’t agree with the President’s political stances, in fact critiquing our politicians I believe is ultimately healthy for our society as a whole, but the arena for negative sentiments is the op-ed news hour not primetime.
Instead to remain “fair and balance,” as Fox calls it, networks must at very least let the President address the American people on issues of incredible importance—and no pushing a primetime Presidential statement to your sister cable news stations is not good enough.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the President’s address to Congress attracted 32 million viewers.
Absent among that 32 million were many Fox viewing regulars that missed out through no fault really of their own. Instead the “fair and balanced” network decided health care reform, President Obama and a joint session in Congress were trivial compared to the musical stylings of frankly stale and recycled television.
I guess I’ll just state the obvious then: Wrong Fox…just wrong.
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Fox Tweets Referenced in Column
Other Tweets Referenced in Column