Academic

Gate-Crashers at the White House: What Gives?

By Jacqueline Lipton

I keep seeing all these news stories, including some hilarious coverage on Jon Stewart about the gate crashers at the White House last week.

But it got me to thinking:  What is it that we are specifically upset about?  Obviously there are things to be upset about, not the least of which is the apparently major security breach, and how easy it seems to be for anyone to get that close to the president and the vice president without too much trouble.  But a lot of the news coverage unleashes anger at the gate crashers themselves (Tareq and Michaele Salahi) for their unseemly conduct, and the crassness they displayed at posting their photographs of the event on Facebook.  Is that really the point?  It's certainly strange behavior if you ask me - but I'm more concerned with things like the security breach and the way in which the seemingly endless media coverage is feeding the frenzy for attention that the Salahis were obviously craving to begin with.  Isn't that likely to encourage more behavior like this, if that's what we're actually concerned about?

So if the concern is stopping people from trying to be reality show wannabes, maybe the media shouldn't give it so much coverage.  If we're worried about the security of the president, maybe there shouldn't be so many public details released detailing precisely how one might go about getting so close to the president.

Obviously the story is troubling (and of course amusing as well) at a number of levels, but the way in which it has captured public and media attention over the last week leads me to wonder exactly what is going on?  What is the fascination with it and are the media and the public able to articulate precisely what they're concerned about in a useful way?

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on December 03, 2009 (boomark / email).