Tuesday, March 20, 2012

To the Editors-in-Chief of MSNBC, CNN, ABC, & CBS: Where Is The News?



This essay may seem a little late joining the fray. The thoughts are not new to me nor are they from some sudden epiphany. The facts and my opinion based upon them formed years ago, only to become more and more collaborated in recent days. The time has come for me to say them to more of an audience than just one person at a time.

With the advent of radio, we saw a surge in news media migrating to the airwaves. Then came television. In my earliest days, my father seemed to marvel as color video streamed into our small. boxy RCA television. It was a news media breakthrough, the day before my first birthday, to watch Neil Armstrong step out onto the lunar surface and utter those famous words. Of course, my personal memories are quite fuzzy concerning the incident. I do, however, recall sitting with bated breath, huddled around that same TV in April of 1970 as the fate of Apollo 13 unfolded in near real-time. In my early childhood, TV News was the "New Media".

In its early days, those days of Watergate, the Vietnam War, and the Apollo Program, TV news was the fire-hose of data. In WWII, radio was the headline blast that counted upon the morning printed news media (newspapers) to full in the details. Those lucky enough to afford a trip to the theaters received Movie-Tone news comprised of stories a week to a month or more old in a video setting. In the late 1960s, that weekly treat had become the nightly norm as more and more families acquired their television sets. The headlines now came "streaming" from cameras to the homes.

In those days, the advocates of "mainstream media", the newspapers and radio news, argued that TV headlines and stories failed to contain the whole of a story. Opponents claimed the TV journalists were "hacks" and not professional. Yet the more tech-savvy championed the seemingly more objective reporting from the camera's eye over the scripted and edited (and often slanted) journalism in the newspapers and radio.

Printed media dates back centuries, with mentions of posted bills and notices dating back to the Roman Empire. When the moveable-type press was invented, printed papers became the "new media". Newspapers and printed periodicals still circulate today. Radio news still thrives, increased with the invention of satellite and internet radio.

During the first Gulf War, CNN stepped up as a "more viable" news source as they broadcast real-time and near real-time video of the war. No longer did we have that hours to days lag between footage shot and it being published and broadcast as we did during the Vietnam War. "Cable News" supplanted local-based syndicated and network newscasts for national and global stories.

In the mid-1990s, more and more homes began subscribing to internet providers. Along with the internet become a household norm in the US, so came our current "New Media". Proponents of new media champion the diversity of perceptions and opinions. Political "spins" balance each other out as long as a reader is willing to look at multiple sources. Today, anybody with a camera, a computer, and an internet connection can pursue amateur level journalism. The information flow has drastically increased to the point that the interpretation of the data is limited only by the amount of time somebody wishes to spend researching the issues.

With the new media, through such forward thinkers as Matt Drudge, Andrew Breitbart, Roger L. Simon, Charles Johnson, Glenn Reynolds, and Ariana Huffington, any event or occurrence is broadcast within seconds or minutes. That brings a simple truth that more data is openly available to the common consumer than in times past. No longer are information consumers restricted to the filters of a couple of choice networks such as ABC, CBS, NBC. These days, even the "new media" of the early 1990s, Cable News sources such as MSNBC, CNN, and Fox, stand naked before the people proclaiming their wonderful garb. However, we can clearly see they stand naked before the world. With the media of today, their filters and veils are obsolete. They are revealed. We see past them. The data is out there, as is the truth.

The problem with "new media" is that so many still cling to those filtered networks for information. Going online, many people go straight to their sites, not taking the time to search for other views of the same stories, or further data that has been published. I discussed the days when people used radio for headlines and newspapers for the full stories in the morning. These days, many people use the new media as though it is 1942 radio, waiting for the "mainstream media" to fill them in later. They fail to see the emperors are standing naked, because they believe the emperors' lie that they are clothed. "How dare you tell the emperor he is naked. If you do so, you are a fool!". Those of us who have embraced the new media chuckle at the emperor, knowing who the fool truly to be.

I rarely watch cable or even local network news. I still get some of my news from radio. Mostly, I get it from the "new media". Any story that catches my attention, I search and fact-check. I look for multiple angles, spins, and perceptions. I make up my own mind. I take the time to do so. I am personally responsible for my own thoughts, decisions, perceptions, and opinions. Some may call that "enlightened", others "wise". I call it "responsible", "mature", and "reasonable".

What I have found, over the past several years, is the overwhelming bias in the "mainstream media". The emperor stands naked before me. I find them rarely viable on any story. More often than not, they report on things they have decided to be "news" and avoided the issues I find important. The "new media", conversely, always has at least two journalists covering those stories. It is why I have migrated towards the new media, for the most part.

The televised networks are obsolete. it is not because their medium has become so. It is so because their business model has chosen to be obsolete. I know many people who wonder why Kim Kardarshian's divorce is "big news" while the mainstream media still fails to adequately cover Eric Holder's involvement in Fast and Furious, the failed operation that lead to the murder of USBP SRT Agent Brian Terry. It's because the mainstream media has chosen to attempt to tell the public that Kim's butt is now open suitors to be more of an issue than USDoJ corruption. With new media, we have a choice what we decide to comprise the priority issues. The mainstream media despises the fact that free and critically thinking consumers are no longer limited by their filters. We now have an easier and liberated means to choose for ourselves. They have lost their power.

I issue a challenge to the mainstream media. I challenge the networks to actually seek out the issues that are important instead of attempting to dictate what we should think. I challenge them to become the journalists they claim to be. Yes, news needs to be entertaining enough to draw and keep an audience. Those near real-time videos of the plight of Apollo 13 kept American families tied to their sets. A story about Lindsey Lohan's latest arraignment would not have taken precedence in those days. If one station carried the Apollo 13 story, and the others covered LiLo's crocodile tears in court, we know which would get the ratings share. Cover the stories that matter. Quit trying to decide for us. Let us make those decisions.

This is why the mainstream media has become obsolete. Their filters, bias, spin, and attempts to distract us from the real world are their downfall. It is not, necessarily, the speed of the internet. Most of them have online sites to compliment their broadcast stations. It is the fact that Joe Gymshoes can pull out a smart-phone and post a story, within minutes,with video, about Mayor Corruptbucks in Nowhereville walking into Sultry Sandy's Pleasure Palace for a "Happy Ending" Massage. It is because real investigative journalists like James O'Keefe has the courage to find stories, and publish them, that the mainstream cannot keep up.

The mainstream journalists have forsaken their calling to seek the truth. Instead they have taken up a campaign to control our brains, our thoughts, and our choices. If they got back to the core principles of seeking and publishing the truth, they could redeem themselves. However, these days, they have chosen to champion socialist agendas. They are no longer journalists. They are entertainers. They are marionettes dancing on the ends of the strings of the socialist oligarchy pulling their strings and issuing paychecks.

A recent case in point is Soledad O'Brien's more than obvious stumbling when challenged by Joel Pollak of Breitbart.com on the revealed associations between racist professor Derrick Bell and Barack Obama. It was  obvious she failed to research the topic. She tried to tell the people "that isn't news". Sorry, Soledad, but we, the consumers, decide what is news to us. That is not your call. Soledad failed to have facts on hand to counter the story or its potential importance. She chose empty rhetoric to attempt to tell people what to think. When Joel pushed the issue, she tried to rebut the facts. After her false statements, there was a scurry on Wikipedia to alter the encyclopedia entry on Critical Race Theory to match her statements, to alter the truth. Too bad., for her, several people archived the original post. Too bad for Soledad that Wiki tracks and publishes the number of updates and the times on their site.

Soledad attempted to dance to the tune her masters played, and followed the tugs on her strings. In doing so, she pushed an agenda. As a journalist, her agenda should have been to reveal the unbiased truth. She failed, as a journalist. I did find the marionette dance to still be entertaining.

You may not care about Obama's collegiate associations. That may not be an issue you find important. However, that should be your choice, not MSNBC's, not CNN's, and not Fox's. With the new media, the story is still out there, and you now have a choice to look at the data or not. I do not wish to vilify Soledad or single her out. She is but one, recent example. It isn't her fault. She is just doing what she is told, for her paycheck. I choose to call her what she is:  an entertainer, not a journalist.

These days, I do find more "truth in reporting" from self-admitted entertainers as Neal Boortz and Sean Hannity. There is no illusion that they express a political opinion. They do not hide it. However, they display supporting facts then state their opinions. The so-called mainstream journalists do the opposite. They display their opinions claiming them to be the facts, then attempt to tell us that the factual data is but an opinion, or is insignificant.

I challenge the mainstream media to throw off the bias. I challenge them to report the facts as facts, opinions as opinions, and let the intelligent and free-thinking individual citizens of our great nation make up their own minds.

I do not care about LiLo's crocodile tears.



I do care about voter fraud.

I do not care about the trial of some single mother in Florida who allegedly killed her child.

I do care about DoJ corruption and negligence leading to the death of USBP agents and bolstering a continuing threat to those of use who live near the border.


I do not care about the trial of Michael Jackson's physician. He isn't my doctor, and it won't bring MJ back onto MTV with a new video that Weird Al can parody within the next 2 weeks.

I do care about what our highest elected official believes, who he emulates, who he associates with, and what his real plans for our country's future are.

I don't care about Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke, who claimed a $3k a year condom bill (that's an average of nearly 11 sexual encounters a day, by the way), a "slut". I still won't pay for her contraception. I don't care how often she needs to use it. It's her body, her responsibility, her business.

I do care about my having the inalienable right to my body (Life), what I do with it, how I treat it, and my individual choices and responsibilities to its care. I care about the government keeping its filthy paws out of it. I care about the same right for every individual American citizen. I don't want the government paying my medical bills thus having a say over what treatment I choose or choose not to pay for.


I don't care about Kim Kardashian's bouncing butt no longer tied by matrimony. I have a woman I plan on spending the rest of my life with. She is, by far, not KK. My betrothed is much more intelligent, for one thing.

I care about the economy. I care about the US Constitution. I care about the freedom and propensity for prosperity of my children.

I don't care about Alec Baldwin losing WWFA (Words With a Flight Attendant).

I care that my kids are educated and not indoctrinated. I care about stories like 13 year old Jada Williams reading Fredrick Douglass's Narrative of Life and her subsequent essay. Her research and self-educating while preparing that essay led her to indict the "white teachers" for purposefully failing to educate, choosing instead to indoctrinate today's youth. Of note, by "white teachers", Jada explains, she does not implicate a race. She used Douglass's words as an indictment of all indoctrinators posing as educators (comprachicos). I despise comprachicos.

I don't care about Nicollette Sheridan's wrongful termination suit against ABC. 

I care about our elected officials standing by their oaths of office and their promises. I care about threats to our great nation. I care about finding a job. I care about the lives of my family and friends. I care about my tax dollars being spent responsibly and constitutionally. I care about the government getting out of the way of the free market, enabling private citizens to start or expand businesses and employment opportunities.


Of the issues that most concern my family and me, only the weather seems to be the one the mainstream media is willing to tell the truth about. It is the only issue they report on, regularly, that concerns me. These days, even that contains some element of socialist spin from the "climate change" Chicken Littles screaming "the sky is falling".

The mainstream media can attempt to debunk the validity of new media until they are blue in the face. They are emotively self-asphyxiating with extreme futility. The simple truth is that the new media is doing the job the mainstream media fraudulently claims to do. New media is on the rise. It cannot be stopped. These days, it is quickly becoming the primary source of the truth. Mainstream media has only itself to blame for their own downfall.

The mainstream media has been weighed. It has been measured. It has been found wanting. 

Vet the Media. Ask about not only what they report, but what they are not saying.


Verum Petitor -- seek the truth. The emperor stands naked before you. Only a fool denies the truth and parrots what they are told "everybody knows".

Breitbart Is Here.

War.





 

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