Mainstream Media Headlines Today...

Tribune Co. (owner of L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune, and many other TV and newspaper properties) lays off hundreds. Top execs resign. The public's lack of interest in reading the news continues to be blamed.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117988899.html?categoryid=18&cs=1

I suppose it's asking too much for publishers to consider how their business model may have failed to adapt to a changing marketplace. Apparently no newspaper publisher has read even a basic business book like “Who Moved My Cheese?” 

Wow, I guess they're right: people don't read anymore.

Elsewhere, supporters of Barack Obama are accused of being humor-deficient after The New Yorker's cover depicts the Obamas as gun-toting, flag-burning, combat boot-wearing radical Muslims.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-onthemedia15-2008jul15,0,6222618.story

I was chatting with a colleague who taught college-level classes on mass media images, and she said this cartoon is one of the worst images of African-Americans she's seen in modern times.

I think I'm part of the latte-drinking, crossword-puzzling, organic-gardening demographic the NYer is trying to reach, and I'm offended by their poor taste. It's not that I don't get it, I do, and I conceed they're making an important point. I just wish they could have made it in a subtler, smarter, more respectful way.

But it's possible to hold two thoughts in your head at the same time. It can offend me personally because it exploits our vilest xenophobic and racist impulses about Muslims, African-Americans, the political left, and so on - AND I can understand the message they tried to send.

And while we're on the subject, I think Michelle Obama is so incredibly hot that she even looks good in camouflage and combat boots. That woman can wear anything.