Media Silence

The media has taken a role in our democracy, both good and ill. Unfortunately, a turn for the worse has occurred that both political persuasions dispute. The mainstream media is considered to be too conservative and too liberal by opposite sides at the same time. As long as the truth is being pursued, it shouldn't matter that much whether it's being presented with a liberal or conservative slant. However, when the press censors stories to protect the government or corporations, instead of the public interest, dangerous territory is entered.

The liberal media label itself is a concoction of the corporations that control the media. For example, though Fox is owned by a right-wing magnate, it was the leader in raising the bar for what they call liberal television. There really is a liberal media, but it consists of something else entirely, and the general public doesn't know it exists. The truth isn't getting out, often because it isn't being reported by the conglomerates. The real liberal media challenges the official story and doesn't accept things at face value; the way journalism is supposed to work.

Right now, the news is more of a tabloid show than anything else. It has become shallow and murky; the opposite of in-depth. There is the case of the fake reporter in the White House press corps. How he got his pass was never investigated, though national security may have been at risk. Questions about government interference with the media should also have been raised. The fact that this didn't become a serious news item, rather than just fodder for pundits, shows the control the right wing has over journalism today. If there truly was a mainstream liberal news media, they would be all over this one.

The consolidation of media is contributing to the decline of real journalism in the major outlets. An independent press is vital to a true democracy, yet both are vanishing before our very eyes. After the fact, we find out journalists were paid to write positive reviews for administration policies, and videos with actors instead of reporters were distributed and broadcast as real news. The General Accounting Office went so far as to call it propaganda; a bill has been introduced in the Senate to force the government to be more accountable in the future.

Entertaining us while protecting us from the facts seems to be a higher priority than telling a substantial news story. The American mainstream press failed to fully investigate the election of 2000, the mysteries of 911, the voting machine anomalies in the 2002 mid-term races, the run up to the Iraq war, the war itself, or the 2004 election debacle. These are just the most obvious abdications. We have to wonder just how deeply the media is complicit in the destruction of our national trust. For now, we must search for the truth in our own way, beyond the media silence.

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