Revealing News

This is probably the most revealing news story I have seen in years. Honestly.

It's Governor Sarah Palin, in an annual ceremony that many elected officials perform before Thanksgiving Day: pardoning a turkey.

At the start of the news piece, the anchor tells you to send the children out of the room, as well as anyone who might be squeamish. He says they have tried their best to "sanitize" what follows, but that you should still be wary. He asks if you're ready, then goes to tape.

The revealing part is the second half of the tape, where Palin is interviewed by a reporter. The reporter and the cameraman know full well that behind Palin, turkeys are being killed (this happens a lot before Thanksgiving; sorry, kids). Yet they do not stop the interview to seek a new spot. Back in the studio, here are the lower-thirds used by the news channel:

TURKEYS DIE AS SARAH PALIN TAKES QUESTIONS FROM NEWS MEDIA.

TURKEY KILLING FOWLS [SIC] PALIN NEWS CONFERENCE.

GOVERNOR PALIN NOT REALIZING INCONGRUITY OF HER WORDS VERSUS HER BACKDROP.

Where to begin?

Never before have I seen the true colours of Big City liberal wimps burn so brightly. This video should be played at the beginning of every journalism class, to show students just how out of touch and hypocritical they are supposed to be.

I remember a couple of years ago I was in England watching a documentary with a friend's mom. She's a lady from Norway, and she wanted to show me this doc on Norwegian soldiers during WWII. In the documentary, modern day soldiers were showing what the WWII soldiers' living conditions were like up in the mountains. In one scene, a Norwegian is cutting up a bird and he says, "Kids need to do this stuff. Where the hell do they think things in the shop come from? They don't even know where potatoes come from."

My friend's mom said, "Exactly."

Of course she's right. We are so far removed from real life that a choice of anti-bacterial soap is more important than knowing how to kill what we eat. When we're hungry, we go to the shop and buy a pork chop or a slab of bacon. It never really occurs to us that somebody has to kill the pig, gut it, clean it, chop it up, and send it market. We take that for granted.

Like the MSNBC anchorman, the majority of us are "squeamish" because we are allowed to be. We're spoiled babies. We don't have to kill or prepare our food. By the time it gets to us, all evidence of life has been removed from the plastic wrapped object in the shop window. The closest any of our kids get to blood today is when an old man at the next table is eating a medium rare steak. Even then the mommies tell the kids not to do that later in life because the USPH says everything should be cooked well done. Double-dead.

And you know what? That's fine, as far as it goes. But it's ridiculous to use real life as an insult to the governor of a state where a great many people kill, clean, and cook what they eat.

No doubt the reporter thought she had a coup with this story, rather than an amusing blooper reel, but all they managed to do was show the imbecility of the reporter and others in her profession. I have no doubt in my mind that when the Chyron operator was punching in the catchy lines to those lower-thirds, he was just back from stuffing his face with a vacuum-wrapped ham and cheese in the cafeteria.

Notice during the video that Palin looks over her shoulder and sees the slaughterhouse, then looks back to the reporter and takes another question. From the angle she has talking to the reporter, I'm not sure if she knew that the killing was in the shot, but even so she doesn't blanche, doesn't stutter, doesn't lean over and puke. She's a woman that has killed her own food. She knows that a big male turkey is called a "tom," and manages to educate Americans by telling them so. She is that quaint thing we call an "outdoor" person, as if the rest of humanity was born to be raised in a three bedroom house.

The most telling lower-third on the screen is the one about Palin's "backdrop." Backdrop, huh? You mean the world? There was a time when the chopping block was more ordinary than a telephone. Just because those days are gone doesn't mean that someone else isn't cutting off the heads of your chicken nuggets.

If you're celebrating Thanksgiving in the US this year, don't forget to give thanks to the guy over Palin's shoulder. Without him, you wouldn't be having dinner. Then think about how incongruous you are to your surroundings.

Note: one other thing about this piece was bugging me from a cameraman's point of view. There was more than enough room to move in for a close-up on Palin if he chose to. Barring that, as a cameraman, I also would have slung the headphones over the tripod handle, wandered over to the turkey man, waved him to me, and told him we needed five minutes and could he take a smoke break? This is often done without cutting an interview. You'll notice the man is looking towards the camera (people always do that) and ruining the shot. I have to believe that if he wasn't killing turkeys, the cameraman would have moved him.