Friday, November 19, 2004
West Wing and Blogs (spoilers)
I noticed surprisingly little commentary about the inclusion of blogging in the plot of this week’s West Wing episode.
For those who don’t watch, it was not especially unbalanced, as one might expect if it were going to be an anti-blog push. Either that, or I am not sensitive enough to be bothered.
Basically one of the characters who works in the White House, Josh, is at a car dealership on the weekend, looking at and discussing the Prius hybrid with a sales guy. He actually spouts some sensible facts, like that gas prices are not record highs in constant dollar terms, and it looks surprisingly bad even going back to the fifties and “cheap” gas, based on relative living standards.
For the rush of it, he insists on test driving a massive SUV/truck that has giant titanium gonads luxuriating in a pool of testosterone. Someone not only witnesses his unplanned reduction of the Prius inventory, but also snaps a picture.
Boom! It’s news that can’t be managed. They use it to humorous effect, and I think if they are making a negative point about bloggers, it’s that “they’re not journalists.” Everything is on the record, so they don’t play nice and by the rules. Imagine! Press freedom, pure and unfettered. The founders would be proud horrified. Much as they would want us not to register and surrender our guns freely.
Once the point was made and the humor was squished out of the scenario, the blog thing didn’t come up again in the episode. It was nice to see the acknowledgment of that reality in the world, however it might have been intended.
In general, West Wing seems to have been on a roll lately. The writing is good, the balance is good, as much as you can expect from a show focused mainly on a Democratic administration, long enough into the series run to risk being tired. It’s watchable because the politics is sensible more than outlandishly partisan, showing the reality of things, how it might be imagined to work behind the scenes, the writing is (back to being) excellent, and the characters and their relationships are compelling.
I wonder what’s next for mainstreaming blogging into the public consciousness.