Name us to Colbert’s presidential exploratory committee

Mr. Colbert,

I was going to call this an open letter, but it’s not. It’s a direct plea to you to name my colleague and me to your presidential exploratory committee.

It’s simple. You’re super. We’re just as super. We are disciples of your ideology. You will be a devotee of my homemade chocolate cakes. (See MAD Baking for photos.)

Let’s be clear: Jessica and I are not unemployed smucks who are looking for free peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we hear you provide to your indentured servants. We have jobs, and we use your creative work product to avoid doing them. At times, we have been so dedicated to making a better tomorrow, tomorrow, that we have put it off until the next week.

Miss Jessica is working toward her Ph.D. in political communication. She uses that talking black box to spread your words to the hundreds of impressionable students in her course. I champion the First Amendment by talking about gateway theory – which, despite its name, does not actually involve smoking pot.

We would give up all this and our substantial grad student salaries to help you become the next President of South Carolina. Please note we have already secured voters in Ireland. If you act now, we would also use our talent and ability to purchase white smoke to get you elected Pope.

Together, we have extensive skills in research, persuasive speech, and international affairs (specifically, Canada). But, we know that’s not really what you care about. You want to hear the three rules for winning the Republican presidential nomination. So, here they are:

Squirrel!

Sincerely,
Megan and Jessica

The death of the watchdog press?

It was probably because I wanted to give purpose to all the hours of my life spent waiting for school boards to return from executive sessions, but I always took pride in the watchdog duties of being a newspaper reporter. It’s a key to democracy. But, the moments where I got to ring the Liberty Bell were few and far between. Unless you’re burning up on the new wrestling coach, why would you put yourself through those torturous hours instead of catching up on the results show of Dancing With The Stars? Because you’re paid to be there.

Local communities need reporters paid to sit through these meetings. Reporters provide the obvious service of condensing two hours of sitting into 500 understandable words on the status of teacher labor contract negotiations. They also, I believe, curb the temptation to circumvent sunshine laws and open records regulations.

That’s why I’m so concerned that Jay Rosen of New York Times thinks the success of Wikileaks is built on the failure of traditional media.

“The watchdog press they treasure so much died,” Rosen said in his latest video blog. “Mostly what our journalists did, with a few exceptions is they just went on to the next story. The watchdog press died and what we have is Wikileaks instead.”

Journalism schools filled to capacity with students eager to expose corruption after Watergate. Today’s students are eager to enter the field so they can write about travel and fashion. How do we restore the nobility of questioning the mayors of towns of 100,000?How do we find people who will keep our government honest? How do we steer the bright and curious into newsrooms instead of law offices?

How do we make sure we’ve got people who care enough to write more than a brief after the next Sunday night burglary at a D.C. office building?