CAN ANY OF US TRUST THE MEDIA?

I suppose at one time or another we have all complained that the media never presents any good news.  We fail to realize (or refuse to acknowledge) that WE are the reason for that.  We are the problem.  We don’t really care to learn that 147 eighth graders went to school today and behaved themselves.  We do, however, really want to hear about the fight at the middle school in which two kids got hurt, with one having to go to the hospital.  In other words, we want the newscasters on the six o’clock news to tell us about the bad things that happened today. That's human nature and both the print and broadcast news media know it.

So they oblige us.  Bad news sells newspapers.  Bad news sells television time.  Bad news, the more bloodier, more graphic the better.  It shows up well on our HDTV screen and gets our attention.  And our attention is what gets advertisers.

It should not surprise us that in his October 12, 2009 interview with Jamie Gangel on NBC's Today Show, Rush Limbaugh confirmed that his show is mainly about making money: "I'm doing my show for ratings. I want the largest audience I can get because that's how I can charge the highest advertising rates, which means what else do I want? Money."  You can be sure the same is true for Glenn Beck or any other independent print or TV commentator, regardless of whether he or she has a liberal or conservative leaning.  Controversy sells just like bad news sells.

Does it make any sense then to switch from one news outlet to another?  Probably not.  Although, by switching you do get to choose the type of biased reporting (translated that means: not getting news you don’t want to hear) you receive.  I guess in a way that its the same as screening out the bad news and only getting, what for you is, the good news.  One-sided news is still biased news, whether liberal or conservative.

Blatantly biased reporting aside, our free press, the fourth estate is crumbling and badly in need of an overhaul.  The house is still there but the insides have been gutted.  For another view, Samuel Clairborne makes the argument that we no longer have a free press in this country.

He says in his blog piece titled, Don’t Piss In My Pocket And Tell Me It’s Raining,  “But the average American looks to the mainstream media for their information, and the mainstream media is no longer free. It is bought and paid for by the same corporations that have bought our congress through lobbying – those that comprise the military/industrial/penal/pharmacological/oil and gas/agribusiness complex. 

“Far from being an objective, inquisitive force, our media have become cheerleaders for much that is rotten in America – because their paymasters profit from our inhumane health insurance system, our centralized energy production and distribution monopolies, our leadership as the world’s number one weapons dealer, and our imperial rape of both human and natural wealth the world over.”

I encourage you to check out his entire piece at: http://samuelclaiborne.blogspot.com/.


Whether you agree with him or not, you will find his comments thought provoking.  His comments underscore the fact that our numerous news outlets are hard pressed to come up with enough objectively gathered and reported news to fill all the hours they are obligated to fill.  Hence, they go for the easy stories and play them over and over again.  They eschew what used to be considered good news reporting -- get the facts, check the facts, corroborate the facts, report the facts -- in favor of being first to break a story.  The important thing is be first and be sensational.  The facts can come later.

Can you really trust your favorite news outlet?  Can you trust any news source that advertises that it is the anti-news to the other guys?  Our fourth estate is apparently up for sale to the highest bidder.  Can we trust any of the media anymore?  I don't think so, but I'd like to hear from you.