The mainstream media have absolutely no desire to be practicers of the craft any more. Eric Severeid introduced the idea, and Fox News, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS...CBS! killed it.
Why is there such a political divide in this country? Because the mainstream media does all they can do to spin the rotors of hyperbole, without elevating the discourse. It's the Gingriching of society, plain and simple.
The most damaging effect of all of this is that there are actually close to 50% of polled citizens who support one of the most un-American, secretive, Machievellian Executive Branches this country has ever seen. Their ideals are not American ideals. They feed upon fear. And mainstream media is wholly complicit in this ruse.
Don't believe me? Ask yourself, how could a nation sacrifice its most precious commodity over faulty intelligence? No, wait, I'm not blaming the administration. I am blaming the media. They had a job to do, and they did not do it. They never questioned a) the Executive Branch on its objectives, b) the Intelligence Community on its intelligence, c) the Pentagon on its war planning. For crying out loud, we all sat on our hands, knowing that the Pentagon refused to tell Congress how much they estimated this war would cost. They didn't know, and yet, we allowed them to invade Iraq and put our young men and women's lives on the line.
American mainstream media has become nothing more than a propaganda machine. You can see how embedded the media is in the policies of George Bush. They keep quoting figures that illustrate Americans' support for the war. Americans did not support the war -- not until 'major combat operations' were concluded. On the day of invasion of Iraq, support for a largely unilateral war was almost evenly split -
47% to 51% for, 49 to 53% against.That is not overwhelmingly supportive of the war in Iraq.
In his State of the Union speech Bush claimed that 34 countries supported the war in Iraq. What the media should have followed that assertion with is that the leaders of 34 countries supported the war in Iraq. The vast majority of citizens in every single one of those 34 countries vehemently opposed the war.
Revisionist history is so rampant, that one has to wonder who'll write the history textbooks. In this day and age, at the flowering of the information age, we've hijacked objectivity. Facts aren't reported any longer. We now hear the ramblings of journalists everywhere talking about how they didn't question the Administration in the run-up to war. Hell, they're not questioning the Administration's assumptions now, any more than they did then. Bush and Co. claim that the Duelfer Report only fortifies their pre-war positions. (crickets chirping)
A Photoshop artist can re-touch any photo to represent any reality. And it can be done so well that reality becomes (like quantum physics) entirely dependent upon the observer. Re-touch the photo, artificially change the experience of the observer, and you've altered one's sense of objective reality. It's that simple. A practice that is in abundant use with our mainstream media. They are the Photoshop artists with the facts and public opinion. In my book that's abuse of the information age. It's the Photoshop Age.
Someone or something needs to instigate a groundswell change in our media. Thankfully, the efforts of the FCC are being challenged as they strive to perpetuate the death of media responsibility. Media ownership is a very important issue, and looking at the new power of the media, vital to our national preservation.
Where are you Howard Beale?
