Beat the Press or Hug the Press?

Continuing on my beating of the drums on Beat the Press, I wrote a BMG Diary to better bash the banal Emily Rooney. Burrowed back in the Greater Boston press, she barely takes on her best buddies in the Boston media. The self love Rooney and the media have for each other is self evident, just watch the show each Friday. Mutual masturbation is how I put it, but it's also unrelentingly vapid - it's hard to watch the dimly lit stage with the dimly lit panel, a metaphor for the actual content of the show. There's no light shining on any of the important issues of the day on WGBH every Friday.

Perhaps this wouldn't bother me, except for the fact that we have few real, profession media critics in this town with any kind of a sizable platform. WGHB/PBS provides the perfect place for a city-wide ombudsman. Free from the tarnish of worrying about corporate sponsors, a show like Beat the Press could have free range to focus on the truly important issues instead of the quickly-swirling blades of tv helicopters and doplar radar. Talking about the use of sources at Boston papers or the lack of important, good coverage in state campaigns isn't something you're going to get at Beat the Press. Maybe that's an exclusive service of LeftAhead, which will Beat the Press Beating any day of the week (we choose Tuesdays).