We Need A National Debate On What To Do With The Media

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As everyone who has been paying the least bit of attention knows, the Bush administration is responsible for myriad crimes. Torture, spying, outing a CIA agent, lying the country into a war; the list goes on and on. The majority in congress are also culpable in most of the crimes, and it’s a safe bet they will never pay any price. But none of these crimes would have been allowed to stand if the media had simply done its job.

The press was given freedom to be a check on the government, not to facilitate war crimes and massive theft of the treasury. And the media we now have is not only a national embarrassment with daily distractions, avoidance of important stories and a general dumbing down of contents, but they have been actively working against the well being of our country for years. And nothing has changed to guard against a repeat of past mistakes. We now have a better congress than we did five years ago; and many in congress have admitted they’ve made a mistake regarding the Iraq War. The change in the executive branch is immeasurable - but the media has yet to even acknowledge a single misstep on their part. “How could we know? The government gave us this information.” With the fact that the majority of the world knew the Bush administration was lying about Iraq, the real question would be – how could you not have known? As a whole of course, you did know, but chose to lie. There were of course individuals who didn’t know, but in general it would have been impossible for the media to be less informed than the people they were informing.

If the major stations and two of the three 24 hour news channels had broadcast a real news show like Democracy Now!, the war would never have happened, and the populace would have demanded trials by now for the crimes that were committed. But in reality, if the media had broadcast real news for the last few years, no one like Bush would have been taken seriously enough to get into office, so the trials would be moot.

There is talk of reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, which may or may not be the answer. But it should at be discussed openly. The least that should be done, in my opinion, is the breakup of the media giants along with strict oversight on the news divisions to guaranty they are serving the public. And we need a national debate on what should be done.

I do know one thing for certain - doing nothing should not be an option.