Never go with facts when a pre-existing narrative will do....

Well, the Republican National Convention has come and gone, and I have been too busy with house guests and the new little darling to even watch the much talked about Clint Eastwood speech.  So I can't say I had been too on top of things, though I was a bit surprised to see the headline that the reality show (which I have also not seen) "Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo" had beat the RNC in the ratings.

This morning, in a quiet moment, I was perusing the internets, and found an interesting note in a Gawker article about that headline:

The Hollywood Reporter story titled "Honey Boo Boo Ratings Top the Republican National Convention" that perpetuated this myth went on to state that this victory was in the demographic of adults 18-49, and this results from coverage of the convention being spread over multiple channels. "Aggregate coverage of the RNC across networks obviously eclipsed Honey Boo Boo considerably," Michael O'Connell wrote. Obviously. Considerably.

The media LOVES stories of increasing American ignorance and the decline of civilization.  So much so that they'll rearrange their own numbers to prove how bad things are getting.

It's quite the racket really....create a reality show, report on how this brings media to a new low, then hype it up so people watch it, then start writing stories about how people are watching it.  

Genius.