It’s a shame that we cannot truly believe anything that we see or hear in the “Mainstream Media”. They have just about ceased to be a source of news and they have, for all practical purposes, become a mouthpiece for government propaganda. It’s hard for Americans to believe, after having had a wealth of terrific journalists that have uncovered fraud, lies and deceit in the past, to believe that all of that journalistic idealism is no longer. Now we have a media that parrot government “talking points” and pre written scripts. Journalists that are “invited” to Presidential news conferences, while those of the media that don’t “play nice” are regulated to sit at the studio and get information second hand like the rest of us and virtually prohibited from asking questions of their own.
The media is no longer a tool of the people. The highly praised and touted “fourth estate” exists no more in the real world of “entertainment media”. No longer do networks seek the truth in matters, they seek ratings. It’s a very rare thing to see a reporter demand an answer from the President or a member of Congress. The Sunday news shows still have a small semblance of journalistic integrity, but even they have the same people over and over again on the screen. How many times must we listen to Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Arlen Specter and that Sunday morning fixture Lindsay Graham? To be truthful, I know what these people are going to say to any given question before they answer. It seems as if these people spend more time in the television studio than they do in Congress, yet I have heard no one mention the fact that the same tired politicians are on every single Sunday.
The news is no longer the news. The truth is no longer the truth. It’s hard to believe that you can go to seven different news outlets and get the same take on the same stories every single day. What ever happened to investigative journalism? The only way that you are going to hear the real truth about anything anymore is to go to the more unconventional outlets. When I want to get a take on something that has happened in the news, I surely don’t get it from the major networks. ABC, CBS, NBC surely don’t have any respect, nor do they take any time to give you the news. It seems that the “news” is now the break between the daytime shows and “prime time”.
If I wish to catch up on what’s going on in the rest of the world, I used to turn on the BBC. No longer. The BBC is hardly any different than CNN. Why is it that we just get the viewpoint of the western governments? Why don’t we get information about what the entire world is up too? Because something is happening in Uzbekistan doesn’t mean that people don’t want to know about it. Why is it that networks only cover the things that other networks cover? Why is it that the most connected nations on Earth when you think of being “plugged in” to the information age, only get about 25% of what’s going happening on Earth?
I have to read The China’s Peoples Daily, and Mother Jones, Truthout, Daily Kos, C-Span, OpEdNews, and foreign newspapers to hear about events that matter to the entire world. No longer do I, nor can I, rely on CNN or the major networks to give me solid unbiased information. It’s a shame that American’s have to hunt to find out what is happening on Earth. We have grown accustomed to getting real news from traditional sources, but it seems as if those days are long gone. If you want to get the big picture on what’s happening in this world today, you have to have a computer and you have to have internet access. This is out of many peoples reach. For those people that have to rely on the network, even the cable networks, all I can say is Good Luck, and Goodnight.
OpEdNews
