The Al Gore Buddhist Temple fundraiser story got almost zero news coverage when The Washington Post broke it last October - or when the Thompson hearings took up the immunity of nuns in the Buddhist temple fundraiser in July. The brief flurry over Gore's phone frenzy in early March lasted less than a week. It happened again last week, when Gore's press-conference claims were exposed as a lie. NBC's Tim Russert missed that point in a two-minute interview. Sweet's other-worldly claim of a Gore feeding frenzy isn't unique.
Trivial pursuit is the name of the game in today's news rooms.
News about illegal activities by the Vice President of the United States arrives 20 minutes into the show, after the health news, the celebrity news, the weather news - if it appears at all. Here again, Lynn Sweet is not exactly on top of media trends. Now don't tell me in this whole big country, always the most important thing coming out is the White House or Washington. If journalists like Sweet were to spend more time watching the news instead of just talking about it, they'd understand how inane that thinking is. Reprinted by permission of L. Brent Bozell and Creators Syndicate.