get donkey!

If you haven’t done so already, please go read this post by Dwight Meredith. It dissects the media’s apparent obsession with pointing out Al Gore’s penchant for re-invention and their suspicious neglect for reporting the times that the President has “re-invented” his stance on various issues.

I had a long post brewing about why things are the way they are, but it turned into an incoherent rant and I don’t have time to finish it (which is a shame because it contained such winners as “If he thinks that it is okay for Limbaugh to level personal attacks at whomever he wants, then I assume that Novak would not be deeply offended when someone points out that he is insane and looks as if he reeks of stale Coffee Nips and cheap Scotch”)

Anyway my point was that there needs to be more media education in this country. Too many people believe in things like “journalistic integrity” and believe that the mere presence of the First Amendment guarantees a free press. I bet it would be a surprise to many that the US does not even rank in the top-ten for press freedom . Too many Americans have no clue as to who people like Richard Mellon-Scaife, the Reverned Moon, Rupert Murdoch, or corporations like Clear Channel and Viacom are. Too few people know that much of the media market is owned by handful of corporations and/or how much these few influence what we see on TV, read in newspapers and magazines, or hear on the radio.

I would also wager that most Americans are unaware that the Federal government is in collusion with these media conglomerates. Right now the FCC is working toward further relaxing station ownership rules so these corporations can claim even more of the radio and television airwaves.

At this point, I’m not sure that anyone would even care if they knew what was going on behind the scenes, but they should at least be told. Media education organizations are a good start, and anyone who believes in actual press freedom should support these groups. Pointing out media bias and unfairness in all its forms is beneficial, but unless people learn about its sources and learn why it might not be a good thing to have ten companies in control of virtually everything, nothing will ever change.

Okay I ended up ranting incoherently, anyway. My apologies.

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