This is a letter to all the men and women in the media who are responsible for making the decisions about what gets communicated to the American public under the guise of “news”. This includes newspapers, television, internet and any other form of journalistic venues.
I firmly believe that the members of the “4th estate” have a vital role in this country, even more important than our other institutions. This role brings with it the responsibility of upholding truth, justice, and honor in communicating information to the American citizenry about our government, at the local, state and national levels, both domestically and abroad. A democracy cannot survive without an informed populace, and this populace must rely on the continued tenacity and veracity of a free and impartial press. Over the past years, with few exceptions, you have sold the American people out. You have become the willing puppets of the government, willing to dance at their command and not only be a reliable conduit for their policies, but also to act as citable sources for their lies and propaganda, hand fed to you. In no other arena has this been more apparent than the selling of the Iraq War by this administration through your channels. They have fed you lie after lie and you snatched them up like hungry lapdogs and fed them eagerly to the American people without a hint of skepticism, scrutiny or doubt. You caved into the threats of the patriot police to label you if you did your jobs and checked the facts.
I am ashamed of you all and ashamed of the American people who continue to fall for your puppet dances, even after the facts have been brought to light by those few real journalists, the ones who take seriously the weighty responsibility their positions demand of them in this democracy. The irony of this situation is that you have so willingly and easily squandered your responsibilities to the American public, without any government sanctions as you see in Russia now.
I fervently hope that at least some of you will realize what you have done, take responsibility for your actions in contributing to the disaster we have made in the Middle East, and start acting like real journalists. Remember your duties – as Thomas Carlyle wrote in 1841, your writing is the very “equivalent to Democracy”.
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Comments: 17
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U Wishing You Laughter
if my son or daughter said he wanted to be a journalist or a whore i would be equally disappointed ...not sure of the quote but perhaps you expect too much from journalism..there is however a lot of diversity in the written journalism
Part of what has brought the press down is the current 24 hour news cycle and the proliferation of news channels. We have substituted solid reporting for online personalities, and opinion for fact. Worse, we allow people to feed us spin as fact. I think that's one reason I get so annoyed at politicians who refuse to give straight answers to straight questions and more annoyed at the reporters who will not hold their feet to the fire and demand those answers.
I sometimes wonder where the idealism gets lost. I was trained as a reporter and have a degree in Journalism. But I don't even recognize what passes for reporting today in terms of what I was taught in school. Where has the sense of personal integrity gone?
I don't believe reporters deliberately set out to publish lies. Well, ok. Maybe on Fox, but otherwise I think the reporters legitimately set out to report what is happening. The problem is that these days they become part of the story and lose their objectivity. When reporters are being interviewed by other reporters as news sources there is something broken somewhere.
I do agree that the 24-hr news cycle is somewhat to blame for the rush to press on some of these issues. It's one thing to report that way on a Hollywood scoop (which to me isn't really legitimate news), but another to repeatedly do it over months and years with something as important as going to war.
As an egregious example of propaganda: in last Sunday's op-ed section a "well respected journalist", George Will, wrote a column obviously intended to subvert progress on energy efficiency, petroleum independence, and global warming. In doing so he provided many false or misleading statements. But it was easy to discern the article as propaganda when he referenced a market research group whose market is primarily U.S. auto manufacturers and dealers. Busting all bonds of reason he suggested that a Hummer H3 (made by GM) was more energy efficient than a Toyota Prius hybrid. in doing so he claimed that the Prius lifetime mileage was 109,000 and that it cost $3.25 per mile for a preposterous $354,250.00!
It only goes to show that some people will say anything if they think it plays well to their support group and nobody checks the facts.
"Lest men suspect your tale untrue, keep sanity in view"! Paraphrase of Hadley & Whitin
I like what your school teacher said - she sounds like a wise lady.
I'm talking about the integrity and health of our current journalistic environment. It basically sucks. It's a bunch of talking heads shouting their opinions at each other. No investigative journalism anymore. Just get a couple of idiots on and you've filled up another 10 minutes with garbage. No one has to substantiate what they say because it's "only their opinion". Then when you run out of political clowns, through in some exciting Hollywood news.
Are you really arguing with me that what passes as the news today is in any way of a decent quality?
That's a sad comment about the American public. We will watch total crap, but not good reporting. There you have it.