No, Newspaper, YOUR Apathy Is Why the Election Failed!

Today's Philadelphia Metro had a headline that was both clever and a show of how little they care:

If turnout's so low, why should we care?

It's simple why this is a misfire on their part: On election day, the only way you would have known there was an election was TWO LITTLE FUCKING ADS ON THE FRONT PAGE FOR JUDGE! No front-page story about an election! No, it was on page 2. To me, that's like saying, "Well, we don't care... but lets PRETEND to care."

The problem is that they are stating that since turnout was low, because nothing "exciting" was happening with the race, they have every right in the world to simply ignore it, to pretend like it was only happening in the slightest of ways. That the election that determined the very makeup of our local government, one where we aren't fighting or arguing about who should be our top leaders... we shouldn't know unless its INTERESTING?!

AM I MISSING SOMETHING HERE?!

God damn it, THE MEDIA'S JOB IS TO MAKE BORING CRAP INTERESTING!

Take the lives of "celebrities", for example! I keep hearing about some reality show star couple arguing about their lives, or how some other start was shown naked. We can devote 30 minutes to trash celebrity gossip shows on CBS, NBC, and FOX, BUT WE CAN'T TAKE THE SAME TIME TO EDUCATE THE PUBLIC ON WHO THE FUCK IS GOING TO CONTROL US?!?!

AND NO ONE IS SPARED HERE! Local news blogs, I'm looking at you bastards, too!

Coverage of the election was SCARCE AT BEST. Instead of taking the time to educate voters, devoting more time to this election, we were instead treated to stories about the FUCKING HIPSTER FUCKING GRIFTER! WHO THE FUCK CARES? Oh, wait, sorry, YOU BASTARDS DID! YOU decided the "Hipster Grifter" bullshit story was worthy of the time and effort needed to attract readers. And, my god, it worked! A boring, uninteresting story about a con-artist that, by and large, YOU supported (even if only in passing), became the biggest story possible.

Well, when you weren't posting events the day before or the day of them happening.

But that's me pissed off.


The fact of the matter is that I would be FAR too dismissive I didn't state the fact that, yes, they DID cover it and they DID try to make it matter. I would be lying if I said they didn't. Philebrity even went so far as to write this awesome article about who they were endorsing. If I had been a registered Democrat and not Independent, I would have gladly voted for him. City Paper also tried hard, and I do respect them all for it.

My rantings, my anger, me pissed off? It all comes from a pretty simple, and pretty fair place; that the turnout was abysmal and, on the surface and to the casual observer, this failed due to lack of media saturation. And, really, that's what it was; Lack of saturation. I guess we all were too tired from the last Presidential election to pay attention.

In turn, we've seen a man who let violent criminals plea bargain only to kill again as DA, the same-old controller, and given City Council the power to pull almost any bullshit it wants.

God damn, I fucking hate this place sometimes...

The list of election results are still coming in through my favorite election-night website, 6ABC.com. A full list of winners, losers, and how fucked we are can be seen here.

Photo: Rikard Larma