I agree that the media is corrupt and too much of an influence but what about all the ways individuals can get news today that by-passes the media completely.
I took a daily newspaper all my life and my parents before me did the same. I haven't taken a paper in two years. Also, I no longer watch the news on television.
And, yet, I somehow have a vague idea of what's going on in the world..
And I don't think I'm alone. So, I'm not sure we have to kill the media ... I think it's dying all by itself.
Well, yes, there are lots of ways to get news. Facebook and Twitter, snapchat, et al. And if you get really curious and wonder if, for instance, that pipeline company really is bulldozing tipis to dig trenches through Indian burial grounds on the Reservation to bury a brand new leaky oil pipeline and destroy water quality forever, why all you have to do is turn on ABCNNBCBS and they'll verify that, if the Washington Post and the New York Times haven't already.
The only problem is that it's all lies.
While some of us regard that pipeline as critical infrastructure, and in this case, infrastructure that is being done right with few problems during the shakedown test run, that's really only a little thing.
I haven't bought a daily paper since I had a parakeet, and that was the same AP feed everyone else gets.
When the bird died, I cancelled. No cage to line.
The big news, the international and domestic political news, is even worse, laced with far more paid 'ordinary' people on the street with an agenda on their paycheck, and maybe even in their hearts, to post on 'social media' and sway the public opinion by first being convincing, and if that doesn't work, silencing by any means necessary any opinion but the one they are paid to promote.
Don't think for a second the narrative isn't being pushed from every direction, which is why many of us have little tolerance for fora where the discussion isn't civilized. If incivility is endemic, it is usually an indicator of people with an agenda, not facts to back it.
I don't watch much on television, either, as far as news goes, just the local channel, and I find out far more on the web--but that requires being skeptical of all, thinking about what has been reported, seeing who said what with what agenda, and even doing a little digging to sort out who's lying now. At times, they all are.
I remain ever conscious of the fact that Walter Cronkite did more damage to US military efforts in Vietnam than the combined forces of the VC, the NVA, and their advisors form both sides of the Iron Curtain when he said the war was unwinnable while the Marines were mopping up the last of the VC in Hue. The Viet Cong had been broken as a fighting force, and our guys fought mostly NVA after that.
And that's the way it was.
At least Dan Rather got caught.
