We, the
residents of the United States, have entered a period in our life that will baffle
the historians of the future. Like lambs
being led to slaughter, we have been led into a mêlée where the citizenry
cannot win. And leading the way, that we
blindly travel, is not a charismatic leader, not the leadership of the
Democrats or the Republicans and not the current candidates running for
President; our ‘bell cow’ is the ‘media’.
We are
experiencing the most pungent use of ‘yellow journalism’ than ever before in
our history. The honorable charge of a
Journalist is to provide the general public with accurate and helpful
information. While I believe that there
must have been some Journalists in our past who upheld this honorable position
of trust, I am convinced that today most Journalists have lost their way…..and
yet we follow them, regardless of the destination; and it matters not which
brand of media you prefer, as they all – the Networks, Newspapers and Online
presentations, are creating a product of dangerous and false information.
Why is the
foregoing happening? Because it has
become more important to Journalism to produce ratings and advertisers, than
the truth. To do that, sensationalism
must be embraced rather than objective journalism; and that seems to be what
the public wants to hear and see – because that’s all we see and hear. How strong of an example is this week’s
worldwide coverage of a man sitting in a tree, in downtown Seattle! There was no reason that the world needed to
see such coverage, yet all of the Networks covered it and the Public, like
sheep, were glued to their Televisions and Radios, asking “why is he up there”?
The greatest
contributor to the lack of objective journalism has to be the age of
technology, where anyone – including me – can be a Journalist; or are we really
Journalists if all we are doing is spouting our opinions? Walter Cronkite said “Objective journalism and an opinion column are about as similar as the
Bible and Playboy magazine”!
I admit, I
am a blogger, not a Journalist. My
writings are developed, usually after I have become so disgusted with what I
see on the internet and the national media.
I don’t use the backdrop of a crashed airplane, starving children or
burning buildings, to get your attention.
I think; and I try to get you to think, even if in the end you don’t
agree with me.
I don’t care
about ratings and I don’t sell advertising!
My copy is not embellished by pretty colored pictures, depicting the ‘good
guys’ and black and white pictures depicting the ‘bad guys’, and I don’t use
misleading headlines.
Recently on
Facebook, there was a political cartoon showing a crowd of people pulling down
the statue of the Thinker, a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin. The irony was not wasted on me. My opinion is that the crowd, in the cartoon,
did not represent the general public, the ordinary citizen or our
children. The crowd represented the current
state of the News Media! Society is
looking on, while the inspiration to think, is being pulled down before our
very eyes by those who are supposed to provide us information that causes us to
think.
Because of
our refusal to think for ourselves and allow the media to tell us what is or is
not right, another quote begins to ring loud and long: We are not educated well enough to perform
the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders….. Walter Cronkite.
