JUST BENEATH THE SURFACE

There are two stories floating around at the moment. They seem to be quite different, but if you look just beneath the surface, they are quite similar. One is about truck speed, the other is about political news coverage.

The first story concerns the increasing number of highway deaths caused by excessive truck speed. These are the big-rigs I’m talking about, the 18-wheelers. The strangest part of the story was the revelation that most big-rigs are equipped with speed regulators set to 68 mph. But they can be, and often are, simply ignored . . . which would seem to make them almost pointless.

The second story goes back a couple of weeks. David Geffen threw a fundraiser for Barack Obama (He’s a Kenyan, he’s a Kansan, he’s all American) and then insulted his old pals, the Clintons, in a print interview. Obama was asked by reporters to comment on Geffen’s remarks.

How could these two stories possibly be related? The key lies in Deep Throat’s admonition to Bob Woodward to, “Follow the money.”

Truckers put themselves (and everyone else on the road) at risk because the less time they spend driving the less money it costs the shipper, which increases profit. Even with higher insurance rate, the shipper makes more money. If a few people get killed along the way, so be it.

Reporters pressed Obama for a response, not because they give hoot what he thinks about Hillary, or Geffen, or politics, but because they were hoping he would call Hillary a bitch, or a lesbian, or a Republican, anything that would give them a lead for the evening news. That pre-fabricated controversy attracts more viewers, which ups their ratings, allowing them to charge more for commercial time, which increases their profits. If the public gets duped into thinking this is real news, so be it.

Surprisingly, money may not be the root of all evil, but you can sure as hell find it at the bottom of most stories.

a foot on either side

Bart Braverman