Coverage and criticism of Obama visit offers some food for thought

I WAS guilty too, like most of the media, and I’m sorry.

I shouldn’t have done it. A woman and her two daughters made a short visit to Dublin and Wicklow, for little more than 24 hours, saw Riverdance, visited Trinity, went to Glendalough, visited a restaurant to eat dinner and a pub to eat lunch, stayed overnight at a nice hotel and I, like others, was foolish enough to treat this as if it was news.

My only consolation was that I gave this short tourist visit only about six minutes of Monday evening’s two and a half hour show and a little bit more time on Tuesday. I realised we may have jumped the shark though midway through Tuesday’s segment when the Fine Gael TD Mary Mitchell O’Connor, without any prompting on my part, started to describe what Michelle Obama was wearing and called her “a rock chick”.