Media Suckery. Again.

Reuters reports the Big News: In an interview with Norway's NRK public television, Gore at long last has finally ruled out a presidential run. Or so you'd think if you read the headline given their wire at MSNBC—Gore rules out presidential bid despite Nobel.

But if you read the actual news item, it's the same quote he's been giving all along: "I don't have plans to be a candidate again … I'm involved in a different kind of campaign, it's a global campaign. It's a campaign to change the way people think about the climate crisis." And if you look at Reuters' own site, the story is simply headlined Gore says no plans to run for presidency.

Yay for accuracy.

Mind you, I really don't think Gore is going to run, and I'm not mentioning this story to "keep hope alive" or something. My point, which really doesn't have to do with Gore at all (except insomuch as the incidental irony that it's got to be at the top of Gore's reasons for not running) is that our media sucks.

And one of its biggest flaws is its willingness to create narratives out of nothing, because it is impatient and hates nothing more than not knowing. And the narrative they built to try to push Gore into announcing his candidacy or making a Sherman statement was that he'd "say" if/when he won the Nobel Prize. And now he has. And he's giving the same "no plans" answer that he's always given (which long ago could have been construed as "ruling out" a presidential bid, but was incessantly parsed to leave that door open, because what a great story that would be!).

But now it's being treated as a final answer, for no other reason than that's how the story was supposed to go. He was supposed to say something definitive at this point. And so even if he hasn't—or nothing more definitive than before—the interpretation just changes. Like that.

And it's just as infuriating on a small scale like this as it is writ large—like watching the media slowly reverse itself on every single thing it ever said while cheerleading the war and sucking the president's dick. "Did we say he'd be fun to have a beer with? Oh, ha ha—we meant he's a stubborn, unpopular douchebag!"

Wev.