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by J. BETTY RAY
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OTHER ARTICLES BY J. BETTY RAY
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Web Filter: Betty recognizes the lamest attempts by corporate Web sites to be "interactive."
Web Filter: The Car-Buying Guide of the Future!
Douglas Rushkoff: Betty talks to the Web celeb about video games, computers, and TV remotes.
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READ ALL ABOUT IT!
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The famed Drudge Report, wherein a report of Newsweek's reluctance to run with the alleged allegations first incited a maelstrom among Washington (cough) journalists.
MonicaLewinsky.com: Nothing yet, but supposedly the purveyors of this site are reserving it for Monica herself to tell HER side of the story...oooohhhh! Stay tuned!
LindaTripp.com: Send a friend a postcard from one of this country's most titillating scandals.
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WHAT DO YOU THINK?
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Should the President be a role model? Should we all just shut up and let this pass? Speak your mind in the All the News topic of the Issues Conference.
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Personally, I don't give a damn whether Bill Clinton did it or not. By the time you read this, perhaps we'll know. But in the meantime, the Great Fornigate/Zippergate/Williegate/Insert Phallocentric Pun Here-gate Scandal is in full swing.
Indeed, amid the throes of media's orgiastic twittering over Clinton's alleged infidelity lies at least one kernel of truth: Scandals, by definition, confront us with that pesky dark side of humanity. Could our Hertz-hawking football hero really have murdered his wife? Could our compulsive appetite for every detail about Lady Diana have caused her demise? Could our highest-ranking government official have orchestrated a burglary at the Watergate hotel? Could our highest-ranking government official 25 years later have been receiving blow jobs from his intern, who now lives at the Watergate?
Illicit sex and the corruption of power sell a lot of papers, a known truth among pornographers and tabloids all along. Illicit sex and the corruption of power are also two of our culture's biggest hang-ups — also a known truth, although far less acknowledged. However, now that there are a zillion newspapers, magazines, TV channels, radio shows and Web sites clamoring for our attention, it's only natural that these truths should become self-evident in the war for ratings.
Folks in the news media were hanging their heads this week, as the spotlight turned from the allegations against Clinton to the inevitable angle that the media might be behaving improperly itself. Echoes of the Diana scandal resound — has media lost its ethics? Is it killing people — literally and otherwise — in its pursuit of The Big Story? These days, the "two source" rule, which holds that reporters must have first-hand confirmation from two separate sources, is dead and buried. CNN, for example, reported numerous times that Monica Lewinsky had allegedly been offered $2 mil to pose semi-nude in Penthouse. Whoops. As Larry King discovered when he asked Lewinsky's lawyer on live television, it's not true. Not yet, at least.
People want to believe. Media celebrities, whether from the political or sports or entertainment arenas, are our new breed of deities. The separation of church and state renders the legal system paralyzed when it comes to moral judgements, and the media has happily taken on that role for us. Is that what we want? Does media have the right to cast its spotlight into the private lives of our leaders and heros? Is it our right to know? Or is this just another human sacrifice like the bloody Aztec practice of a few short centuries ago?
Sadly enough, as anti-American sentiment comes to a head in Iraq and Cuba, Clinton's political demise seems certain. Whether he brought this on himself is a matter of personal opinion. But one thing is for sure, and that is that the next scandal is just around the corner.
That's J. Betty Ray's opinion — what's yours? Speak your mind in the All the News topic of the Issues Conference.
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