How do you stop it? In years gone by, newspapers, radio and television were reasonably honest outlets for gathering and presenting newsworthy information on the happenings of the day. In recent years, the reliability of these outlets is called into question. In many instances, the information dispensed is outright lying.
Where did we go wrong? A growing number of people believe that things changed when the fairness code for broadcast media was dropped by the Federal Communications Commission. Without this regulatory policing and with the excuse of the need to compete, television, radio, newspapers and magazines soon followed into the abyss of unaccountability.
If in fact that was the genesis of todays discredited news channels, news anchors, news reporters, pundits and editors, recent history indicates that the loss of the fairness ethic is a genie that can never be restored to the bottle. Unfortunately, the lack of journalistic ethics, politician duplicity and lack of accountability plays into the hands of modern-day charlatans.
When the journalism community was placed under the business structure of a for-profit business, coupled with the demise of the mandate for ethical and fair behavior, it was inevitable that the profit motive would soon override decades of journalism integrity.
Today, news reporting must be popular or it will loose its appeal to readers, listeners, or viewers. When ratings plummet, the news reader soon finds himself / herself unemployed. Consequently, these folks, many of whom were never reporters themselves, take on the persona of actors, narrators, and/or fiction writers. Some become clowns, buffoons ...anything to keep the audience entertained and continuing to tune-in.
The lack of real reporting by real journalists is contributing to the demise of honest politics, ethics in business and a general decline in the public's confidence in government, business organizations and most other institutions of authority.
When you couple the decline of journalism with America's growing acceptance of meaningless words, you accelerate the societal decay. Marketing, advertising, business executives, politicians and government have chosen to move from the restrictive dictionary definition of words into a conversation and presentation mode wherein common words are used but with distorted, not universally accepted meanings. This distortion of the language allows deception to be sold as fact. The media accepts this garbage without question least they offend someone whose agreement to appear on their respective shows is required to keep the ratings climbing and the hosts employment continued. In the past decade, the media's approach to journalism has been very destructive to the country and continues to screw America into the ground.
If we are ever to get out of this death spiral, America must wake up and demand honest and factual talk from its business owners, politicians and governments of all levels. Additionally, we must demand that media get back to journalism, not rest until they get honest, factual and complete answers from those whom they interview and present in their print, visual or voice outlets. If we continue our current trends, we are destined to fall into third world, banana republic status ...and it will be a short time coming.
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