real journalism

Bless the Beasts and the Bookies

An interesting contribution on the new celebrity-post, The Huffington Post, by Sportscaster Jim Lampley includes this recollection:

"At 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on Election Day, I checked the sportsbook odds in Las Vegas and via the offshore bookmakers to see the odds as of that moment on the Presidential election. John Kerry was a two-to-one favorite. You can look it up.

People who have lived in the sports world as I have, bettors in particular, have a feel for what I am about to say about this: these people are extremely scientific in their assessments. These people understand which information to trust and which indicators to consult in determining where to place a dividing line to influence bets, and they are not in the business of being completely wrong. Oddsmakers consulted exit polling and knew what it meant and acknowledged in their oddsmaking at that moment that John Kerry was winning the election.

And he most certainly was, at least if the votes had been fairly and legally counted. What happened instead was the biggest crime in the history of the nation, and the collective media silence which has followed is the greatest fourth-estate failure ever on our soil."

This, The Greatest Story Never Told, has sealed forever the deal between the Republican government and the Corporate Mainstream Media. Each has betrayed any notion of a belief in the American democratic system by the cynical realization that the control of information is the same as control of power. In addition, we've seen many of the children of the 60's grow up to become a generation that has become the most selfish and least interested in a better future. In the inexorable push toward maximum wealth and immediate satisfaction, they have sold out their the futures of their children and of their children's' children.

posted by mauiloa @ 6:06 PM