(continued)
The quality of news coverage in our country has been in steady decline during the past fifteen years. During that time a circus atmosphere and tabloid mentality has infected news coverage in our country where sensationalism has replaced quality news coverage. Substance has been thrown to the dogs and the public now gets a steady diet of diversionary and irrelevant information with no real value.
We are fed a constant variety of gloom and doom, blood and guts, Hollywood glitz and totally useless information by many newspapers, radio stations and television stations, whose prime concern is money, not the people to whom they have a public responsibility.
The images sent into many homes by the electronic media every evening could make one think that planet Earth will only survive a few more hours, at best. The way most news organizations currently cover the news is an outright insult to the intelligence of viewers who only ask for a little reality and substance once in a while.
It's no small wonder that many in the public are uninformed as to important issues of the day. They are uninformed, not because they cannot read, write, think or evaluate, but because they are not being given the necessary information to make intelligent, informed decisions. This policy of de-information by a good majority of our conventional media is by design and ties in with the aims of the power structure in our country! "Keep em, dumb! They wouldn't know any better and wouldn't understand" is what the elitists preach! Sure, divert my attention from the real issues facing American society, for I wouldn't understand anyway. Well, the problem these days, even with the aforementioned policy of de-informing the public, is that far too many of us do understand.
The days of Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow, (pioneers in the coverage and reporting of the news for television) are long gone and today's reporters of the news in the conventional media have a Dodge City, O.K. Corral mentality. Shoot em up, Bang Bang!
Only very recently have major news entities like CNN begun to address what the general public cares about or is thinking. CNN's possible concern over the mass of defections to the Internet has spawned a daily live program called, "Talk Back Live". It's nice to know that billionaire Ted Turner, and his Atlanta Media Mafia, care to hear what I think. Thanks Ted! Too little too late as far as I'm concerned. I had to wait forty years for you to want to hear what I think and have to say? No thanks, I'll use the Internet to get my points across, not "Talk Back Live" where your screeners will censor the calls and the topics.
Major media concerns, like NBC, CBS and ABC are owned and operated by major corporations like General Electric, Westinghouse and The Walt Disney Company. Their news coverage is of little concern to these corporations unless their news operations and shops by some error manage to do a report critical of the parent corporation.
General Electric, owner of NBC, also manufactures materials used in nuclear weapons. So NBC, with its public trust to inform me and make my life a little better, is owned by a company that contributes to the total destruction of our planet should nuclear war ever, God Forbid, become a reality . That's just great!
In spite of this, there are a few excellent, no-holds barred, cyberjournalists with Matt Drudge leading the way, to the chagrin of The CBS's, NBC's, and ABC's of the world. Yes, they have all tried to hire him, of late. Now Matt Drudge may resemble a muckraker in terms of his style of journalism, but I feel he's far from what Drew Pearson and Walter Winchell represented in the old days of getting the "scoop" at all costs. (Walter Winchell and Drew Pearson were feature newspaper columnists in the 1930's and 1940's. Drew Pearson wrote for The Washington Post and Walter Winchell for the New York World Telegram and Sun and New York Daily Mirror, both now defunct. Both Winchell and Pearson were known for their sensationalistic writing styles and both won the Pulitzer Prize, print journalism's top award.)
My hat goes off to Matt Drudge for being who he is and having the guts to break the Monica Lewinsky - President Clinton story, after Newsweek found a reason to kill the story. Once again, as I wrote two weeks ago in my first column here, "Matt Drudge, my hero!"
So, in what I write for Net4TV Voice, I'll stay away from gloom and doom, blood and guts. My columns are not conservative, liberal, middle of the road, Democrat, Republican, socialist, leftist, reactionary, libertarian, sexist, racist, or tied to any political ideology or whatever labels our system uses to divide and stereotype us.
Rather, my columns are based on logic, common sense, and my calling it as I see it. My columns are not influenced by whether or not I'll have a job at the end of this week or next, nor are they influenced by sums of money that advertisers have paid me or my employer to push their personal or political agendas. Therefore, I would hope to make my readers think a bit, and ultimately, reach the idealistic goal of what journalism is: the practice of finding and getting to the truth.
If what I seek to accomplish and how I define the methodology of what goes into what I write puts me on a moral high ground in the field of journalism, that is not my intention. However, I would be the first to admit that all journalists should aspire to the higher moral and ethical ground or position. Sadly, too many could care less and holding on to their social status and jobs is no excuse for producing crap, when one knows better.
In the twenty-one months I wrote commentary at my website, "Politics As You Like It" I felt I got to the truth of the subject matter I was writing about. This doesn't mean that if you disagree with any position I might take that you would be on my enemies list. I have no lists nor have I ever maintained one. My name is not former President Richard Nixon!
I have a healthy respect and admiration for other peoples' viewpoints and their inherent right to have those viewpoints and I do not hold it against anyone when their views differ from mine.
Nor do I refuse to associate with those who do not share my beliefs, ideas, or politics. This is not to say that I'm totally politically correct, for political correctness (in my opinion), represents censorship of free speech. So, perfect I'm not! If you're looking for politically correct affirmations in what I write, you've got the wrong guy.
Tunnel vision along with tunnel hearing leads to darkness. No one's position, no matter how forthright it may be, is perfect. There are too many areas of gray to adopt positions based on black and white. Usually, black and white statements reflect personal interests, and a lack of true examination of an issue, not the truth. There are just too many sides to any given issue to reflect one way of thinking. Objectivity must be found in any issue before reaching the beginning of the truth.
So, I invite the readers of Net4TV Voice to go on this journey with me, in attempting to restore some ethics, morality and spirituality into the art of writing and journalism. It could prove to be a rocky ride, so I caution you to fasten your seat belt, for I have no insurance and am working without a net. Some of what I write of you may not agree with or like, but I promise you provocative, stimulating and interesting reading and the opportunity to think a bit.
To visit Bernard's homepage go to Politics As You Like It.