::::::::
A few days ago MSNBC’s Chris Matthews was criticized for immediately launching into women’s issues and Hillary Clinton's influence at the Democratic convention after welcoming Rachel Maddow to his show.
So what else is new? Although in this case, I think the criticism was somewhat off-base, because all the talking heads were discussing Hillary Clinton and her refusenik supporters.
In questioning Maddow about Hillary’s roll at the convention, Matthews was no different than the rest of the media that uses black reporters to cover black issues or stories involving blacks, or Hispanics to cover Latino stories.
If they could, I'm sure they'd have reporters of every sexual persuasion and racial flavor to cover every story from every group they hypothetically represent.
You can bet that if there were Water World people, they'd use them exclusively to cover hurricanes and floods.
If there were men from Mars, they’d be assigned all UFO stories.
Mole people would investigate earthquakes and do all the interviews with Kate Hutton at the USGS and Lucy Jones at Cal Tech.
Roman charioteers and drug addicts high on speed would cover auto racing, while red hot mamas would travel the world surveying volcanoes.
Flies on the wall would be gossip columnists.
Drug addicts on speed can cover auto racing.
If reporters were assigned stories because of their names, my news beat would be beach erosion, ice berg melting and rising sea levels. Well, maybe the last one would be covered by Sam Waterston.
OEN contributors, Steve Young would be assigned to youth education and sports stores, while Kathlyn Stone and Ben Marble could cover all things geological and “Rocky” movies.
John Wood, Sr., who contributed to some of these whacky ideas, would be assigned to interview Smokey the Bear on forest preservation and fire prevention; Rob Kall gets to keep track of the doings of phone companies; Wolfie and Brian Wolf get all canine stories -- animals and teeth.
Ferdinand gets to cover all the rest of the bull.
These who-should-cover-what ideas are as sensible as the media assigning stories based on a reporter’s gender, ethnic, racial or religious background.
That’s their standard, and they’re sticking to it.
So when Maddow starts hosting her own MSNBC show in September, we can be assured that just as she does on her Air America radio show, she will cover all topics.
But if a strictly men’s issue comes up, she can return the favor and invite Matthews on to discuss it from his male persuasion point of view.
