News Paralysis
I’ve got to stop watching the news. It’s terrible. Another bunch of U.S., British, Italian troops killed. Another bunch of Iraqis, Lebanese, Israelis, fill-in-the-blank murdered by suicide bombers. People ticked at the Pope because he exercises freedom of speech. People exercising freedom of speech to protest others’ freedom of speech (and doesn’t that make sense?)
It’s gotten to where I can’t quit looking at it. I can’t tell what’s true and what’s not. I find it all depressing. And then, there’s the stuff that just isn’t true at all – some of which I know from my own bloody sources and resources.
How can we have a free society when the news is so dependent upon the capitalistic system that they have to sell to the least common denominator to satisfy their shareholders? Or when the news is beholden to government officials? Or when the news is a tool of the government? In these situations, no wonder the news agencies protest like murder when they’re accused of inaccuracies, spins, or flat-out lies.
So I make this pledge: to cut down on the news I get directly from the local papers, or Reuters, or the New York Times. Instead, I will read a lot of blogs. These guys bring a sanity to an otherwise nuts media world. They – we – are getting a bad rap from the mainstream media. But then, we are direct competitors to their bottom lines. Bloggers can make decent money doing what they do if they’re good and subscribe to a network. And because today they are attacking the single most important asset of a news agency – their perceived integrity – the news agencies are not terribly happy with them.
I say nuts. I don’t much care about their opinions. I do care about the news stories I dig up myself. Or read about from dedicated bloggers who still understand what investigative journalism is. To be honest, I think bloggers may just save the world.
But then, I may be a trifle biased.
