The Meida's Dumbing Down of American Political Discourse

[Sander]

I am trying to listen to Sen. Obama's speech in New York this morning on the economy. I first tune into CNN and listen to his points very carefully. Then, about ten minutes after the hour, the CNN host breaks in with a summary of what she thinks he has said and then moves on to more video of Rev. Wright's speech.

So, cursing under my breath, I tune to MSNBC. Ahhhh, great, they still have the Senator's address on live. A minute later, then also tune away to a commentator telling us that McCain has already responded with a 30 second sound bite to the speech (before it is even over) saying that it is just more liberal tax-and-spend verbage. The host then starts showing more of Rev. Wright clips.

So the media are apparently convinced that the American people are too stupid to follow important economic policy details and would rather listen to salacious and inflammatory rhetoric. No wonder the American people have become so blinded to political realities. The media has trained us to think anything more than a few minutes on any one topic is beyond our ken.

The media today has abrogated their responsibility to keep us informed. Ben Franklin and the other founding fathers must be turning over in their graves.

[City Lights]

1. In the future, I suggest you watch it via the Internet. CNN has a live link.

Be sure to send CNN and MSNBC an email telling them that you prefer to form your own opinion by listening to the whole speech rather than have their "experts" listen and summarize it for you. Also let them know what you think of their attempts to dumb down the public. Then tell them if you don't see an improvement, you'll turn to the Internet for your news.

I've sent that email to both. It hasn't made a difference, but maybe if more of us sound off, it will have an impact. If nothing changes, turn them off. The moment you do, I guarantee your day will improve. :-)

[qanda]

2. There's a mistake in your title

For a minute I thought this thread was going to be about Tyler Perry-- :-)