I don’t mind that newspapers write fluff, and frankly, this is well-written fluff. The short, sweet puff piece can fit anywhere in the paper, and a bit about Obama’s trip to Old Faithful may well convince Americans that visiting national parks is superior to visiting, say, Universal Studios.
But the idea that newspapers are somehow superior in seriousness to other forms of newsmedia is pretty silly, and this particular case points out the silliness of having the press pool actually follow the president around for everything. After all, did everyone in the press pool need to file this story? Furthermore, if competition dictated that newspapers had to spend the money to assign writers to the president’s trip, doesn’t that indicate some advantage for an organization that does not have to follow Obama around in order to get the same story?
Still, a good line:
After lunch on Saturday, the Obamas and their party made a surprise stop at a general store near Old Faithful, where the president ordered ice cream for his daughters — one strawberry in a cup, another in a cone. He wound up eating much of the cone himself.
Just another way Obama is LITERALLY Hitler, I guess. Hitler also ate his daughters’ ice cream.
