Opinion
Presidential life displayed by media
March 12, 2009
It’s been a while since the U.S. has had a president who has received as much star attention as Barack Obama. America has seen an abundance of media coverage of the Obama family as if they have become rock stars instead of the presidential family. We the people have failed to respond to what should be labeled as newsworthy. Instead, we have become too fixated on the privacy of our new president’s life and all that it entails. Just get over it! He won, he’s black and he’s our president!
We are forgetting what really matters: the facts, and what we as a nation are going to do to turn this country around! I’m not an Obama hater, I’m a concerned citizen.
We all are at fault in this situation. People are watching entertainment news programs that promote and advertise what kind of dog the president is interested in buying for his daughters, who by the way will have no affect on any of usÑthe brands of clothing that the Obama family is wearing and where they like to go shopping. The problem is that we are watching those shows; we are feeding the monster that is the mega media conglomerates.
Night after night, entertainment news shows on all mega networks are covering what is fashionable. It used to be what the celebrities would wear and now it’s what Obama wears? When was the last time you sincerely cared about what kind of dog our president plans on buying or what kind of clothes he wears?
The solution is not escape! The people need to come together and focus on the problems America is facing: the economy, domestic issues such as new taxation policies, a national healthcare program, a failing automobile industry and a people who need to come together as a whole to solve these problems and put their differences aside.
I’m no socialist, but I think people can check their egos at the door and help solve what America faces today and what this country will face over the next four years.
The people must do their part and decide what is really important: that while we want to know what our president is doing all of the time he has every right to his own privacy and thus should be given that. While doing this we have to decide what really matters and that is that what our elected officials are doing outside of their job, unless it is affecting their job, shouldn’t be our concern. Barack, as far as we know, isn’t Bill Clinton. So the next time you watch an entertainment news show, think about what you really want to know: whether or not you have a chance of getting any kind of job when you graduate or what kind of cell phone that Barack Obama has in his suit coat pocket.
Gary Klaput is a student at UW-River Falls.