Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear…as a Journalistic Referenda?

Unfortunately for me, I’m actually not in D.C. when the big Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear kicks off on October 30th. But in almost ironic fashion, it’s of course become a craziness in and of itself that goes far beyond a sane approach to covering a rally. As noted by this article in Christian Science Monitor, now we’re talking about the impact of media organizations and their roles in affecting who may or may not attend/cover the event:

Voices such as Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo and Glenn Greenwald of Salon could be examples of where journalism is headed. “[Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert] make no pretense of having no opinions,” Cohen says, but they do their homework, source everything with facts, and glean information from as many sources as possible. Given the avalanche of information available, transparency – not control – is the coin of the new realm, he adds.

The traditional values of journalism are under siege, says Kelly McBride, who is on the faculty at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla. “If you work in a newsroom, part of your mission is to speak across the political spectrum,” she says. She points to the language of the Colbert and Stewart rally: The satiric dig implied in “Restore Sanity” is a swipe at the earlier Glenn Beck rally, which was entitled, “Restoring Honor.”

This is going to be a certain kind of entertaining, I have a feeling.