I doubt that I am the only American who has noticed some of the distinct characteristics in the news coverage dished out to Americans during holiday periods like this long, four-day Thanksgiving weekend.
The good thing about working in the business of news dissemination during holiday times is that there is extra pay involved.
There should be. That's because, quite honestly, most years there's usually not much of importance or interest in places of interest going on that can be delivered to the public's eyes and ears on the holiday. (I say "usually" to account for the tragic fatal shootings of two National Guardsmen in D.C. on Thanksgiving Eve.)
The challenge of working in news on holidays like this one is that any news consumers are — or should be — more focused on observing and celebrating the holidays with families and friends. Holidays like this one usually have plenty of football to consume with overly-abundant foods and liquid refreshments.
I have at times fantasized about turning on the TV for the evening news during a holiday like this one, but instead finding a blank screen with the message that due to the absence of worthy news, that news program has been canceled and replaced by classical music. (I said it was fantasy.)
So, this year, I have pulled together my predictions for the hackneyed stories you are most likely to be presented with as news today and into Monday. (Hint: Many will have something to do with this. Or this one, which is even more ominous.)
Please, please share below your own expectations for the cliches you're most likely to encounter if you seek genuine news coverage these next few days.
You can hear my predictions in the audio commentary right here:
If you're a politics news junkie, you may have noticed the dominant media narrative these days has shifted.
Until recently, it involved detailed coverage of the mayhem underway within the Democrat Party as it fails to address the scandal of perpetrating Joe Biden on the nation as a fully-functional commander in chief for his four-year term and certainly ready, as the oldest president in national history, to serve another four-year term since he was by serial testimony "sharp as a tack."
Kamala Harris was blaming her campaign disaster on everyone but herself in the book she didn't write for herself but is trying to sell by herself. And everyone else in all the disparate wings of that political grouping was pointing fingers in every direction but at themselves.
Now, however, a sympathetic mainstream media has changed gears and is pounding the narrative theme of the virtually certain political doom fast approaching in next year's midterm elections for Republicans and their leader, Donald J. Trump, who is not on any ballot.
That may occur. It may not.
But drawing virtually certain conclusions about anything 10 days from now is a fool's errand, let alone 341 days from now. So, in this week's Sunday column, I set out to explain this phenomenon, why it occurs so predictably when the name Trump is involved, and outlined the chronic political party dissension chronically afflicting the Democrat Party that gets so conveniently overlooked when it doesn't fit the desired contemporary media narrative.
The most recent audio commentary — Another Big City Goes Goofier Over Donald Trump — detailed the hilarious civic financial decision just made by Chicago's City Treasurer because she knows so little about finances.
It would be seen as totally ridiculous in a normal time if Trump Derangement Syndrome had not infected so many tony brains in so many Democrat cities. You'd get a chuckle from this one.
