Libya/Syria? Who cares? The Congressman has a Penis.

It has been over ten weeks now since western nations and NATO’s campaign under UN Security Council Resolution 1970 that authorised a ‘No-Fly Zone’ over Libya authorizing ‘all necessary measures’ to protect civilians’.

Naturally in the early days of the campaign there was a fervor of media activity as correspondents from almost every major news organization on earth covered the unfolding crisis. Now as military operations continue and Tripoli has its heaviest bombardment of the campaign, Libya as a news story struggles to gain any real coverage in the mainstream media.

Here in the 21^st, the news gathering capabilities of the major networks have never been more extensive and the technology available to beam reports from any part of the world into the homes, computers or mobile devices of the masses has never been more advanced. So one can only assume that drastic reduction in reporting in Libya is merely a question of editorial prioritization.

So what has been getting the attention of the world’s news editors?

The scandal involving New York Rep. Anthony Weiner has played right into the hands of the morbid 24 hour news cycle by bearing all the hallmark of the salaciousness that old media now has an unquenchable thirst for. Politicians lying, sex, improper images, the Congressman’s unusual name (great for headlines), multiple women, a loving and now pregnant wife. Meanwhile the plight of millions in Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen and Syria get relegated to by lines or paragraphs buried in the ‘world’ sections of broadsheets and barely rate a mention at all in the tabloids. 

However, as per usual these days, we can rely on the ‘fake media’ to highlight exceptions to the old media rules For this we turn to Stephen Colbert who has questioned the first news bulletin to be presented by Scott Pelley for the CBS Evening news.

CBS is to be applauded for leading with Libya and Afghanistan as it lead stories, but it also shows how absurd the media circus has become. In order to differentiate from its competitors, CBS has had to revert to reporting real news. Let’s hope that other old news services see it as a new trend to be followed.

The bravery and conquests of the people as they rise up against a series of oppressive regimes need to be kept in the spotlight so that free people across the rest of the world can be informed and maintain the pressure on their democratically elected representatives to reinforce diplomatic rage on the worlds tyrants.

I know what many of you must be thinking; representative democracy by the people for the people is a misnomer, an ideal that no longer exists or could never be achieved.

You try telling that to the millions across Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Iran and Syria and the grieving families of those who lost their lives in pursuit of the ideal that minority of us take for granted.