Ideas and Revolution

Once upon a time American politics was the antithesis of wanton media driven character destruction. The crux of political debate in days gone by was built upon a mutual respect between the participants, including the media. No student of history would deny there have been political blood baths throughout American history, but respect for your opponent was always a tower of unshakable continuity through the generations. Unfortunately we are now witnessing the de-evolution of political accountability courtesy of a healthy dose of media bias and softball news reporting. The forbidden fruit of mindlessly slandering your opponent has proved to be too tempting to resist by almost all media outlets on some level. Controversy drives ratings in case you haven’t heard.

Show me any prime-time political television magazine show and I’ll show you perpetual ten minute sound bites of meaningless political triage that is downright dangerous to watch without downing some Pepto-Bismol beforehand…that is if you survive all the Anna Nicole Smith updates. In this myriad of softball pop-culture updates masquerading as news, it makes one wonder where real reporting has gone. Sure CNN, ABC, FOX and some other major networks tend to approach hard news, but not Walter Cronkite news or much less Edward R. Murrow news. Not the news our parents grew up with – where they actually showed the dead bodies coming home from Vietnam and where the President was questioned directly about Watergate. Make no mistake, the right wing dominated media in this country – yes right wing dominated – is still on the offensive with their “Billary” comments and talk of Obama Bin Laden – still trying to spin a hopeless situation in Iraq – former FOX analyst Tony Snow turned Bush press secretary, still assuring us everything is cool. The reality is, the gloves are still off even after an abysmal mid-term election loss by the Republicans, and apparently locked in a vault at the Heritage Foundation. The simple truth is that most news networks simply do not report the facts, rather, they report the often times ridiculous company line – like the British pulling out of Basra is a good sign! Really it is! Maybe the facts are a bit too troubling or maybe a dumb-downed American public can’t wrap their collective mind around them to properly analyze what is really going on. However a line has clearly been crossed, and an alarming line at that. That line is one of outright publicly ensconced sugar-coating of the news. We have seen this type of thing before. The birth of Yellow Journalism and The Red Scare come to mind. What is the alternative? The answer is tolerance and respect for the other guy. Agree to disagree and all that sort of nonsense. Diplomacy…remember? Report what is actually happening and stop playing softball with our very existence as a nation. Democracy demands critical analysis when it is in need of repair – no matter how bitter that analysis is. A robust is often the necessary fix. Contrary to what is spoon-fed to Americans everyday via the main-stream media, it is possible generate real news, but more importantly, the media must safeguard the people’s interest in government of the people, by the people, and most importantly…for the people – not for corporate America and it’s entrenched political machine at the money trough in Washington. All this of course begs the question…if the main stream media cannot simply find a way to report solid news again and engage in progressive, thought provoking discussion on the issues, then what is their role in the future? Is their agenda one that promotes a darker purpose…the institutional destruction of any opinion not in line with their own and the eventual conquest of all free forum opinion? Don’t laugh it off right yet.