Penny Thoughts: The Sad State of America’s Media

A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will in time produce a people as base as itself. – Joseph Pulitzer

Having been raised by a strong Southern woman from East Tennessee and her loving husband from Thomasville, Ga., gave me a lasting sense of well-being and a balance of values. Two things were not abided, 1) liars and 2) stupidity. They showed me that the second could be excused and even be tolerated, but the first was a personal choice and a quality of character. They taught that it was to be exposed and challenged in every instance.

Reviewing today’s media there is an obvious absence of former giants like Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Chet Huntley, Harry Reasoner and Barbara Walters.  They reported the news. 

By contrast, today’s “pretenders” to news reporting are woefully bereft of any sense of integrity, personal honor, balance of views, objectivity or respect for the truth. The prominent contemporary media platforms and sources, Facebook, Twitter, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times, to an institution, have all abandoned any pursuit of accurate and objective reporting in favor of presenting a specific view and evaluation of events. And in most instances these ten media outlets either deny access to or ignore a complete reporting of events to promote their own specific institutional “views”.

In case you were not aware, those “views” decidedly favor the Democrat Party and the Liberal Leftist positions on every, single issue facing America today. The corruption has been blatantly revealed in the story regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, and their criminal dealings with other nations using America as leverage. This story has been blocked from Twitter and Facebook and has been completely ignored by other media outlets. The New York Post, the media outlet which reported this news, has had its Twitter account suspended and its posts “limited” on Facebook!

So much for free exchange of ideas in 21st Century America!  One must wonder just how much censorship is rampant throughout the entire nation, and, perhaps, even here in Demopolis, all at the capricious hands and preferences of single-minded editors and publishers.

It has become obvious that the above-mentioned information outlets have merely become apologists for the Democrat and Leftist notions of power and freedom. They are essentially socialist ideologues and serve as evident vehicles for the propaganda of the Democrat and Leftist positions. They ignore anything which is damaging to Biden or any Democrat and they heighten anything which demeans or diminishes Republicans and President Trump. Anyone who cannot see this is either blindly transfixed on the Democrat and Leftist positions or who psychotically hates our President. Thus, they may be stupid, which can be ameliorated, or they lie, for which they will pay a moral price later in their lives.

This prompts the pressing question of the obvious lack of balance in media reporting today. In our democratic Republic, the Founders believed that America would prosper through the establishment of “an informed electorate”, which relies on two aspects of our society, 1) good education, and 2) an honest press/media.  The former provides enough fodder for an entire volume of books, while the latter stares us in the face every minute of every day.

It would be convenient and simplistic to say that our current media “reporters” are products of the society from which they have emerged. They are mostly in their mid-40’s, well set financially and have little notion of what it may have been like to “work your way up the ladder”. They are narrow-minded and singularly focused with little tolerance for any opposing views. They live in a bubble of like-thinking and from all reports, they confine their discussions of current issues to each other. It is an “echo chamber” of the most egregious proportions and reverberates with immensely destructive consequences. They cannot and will not admit of any views other than the dogma of their own myopia.

It is tragic for our democratic Republic because it limits any free exchange of differing postures. It, also, imprints an implied approval of “group think” as gospel for an entire nation. Our current situation is the culmination of Joseph Pulitzer’s quotation which heads this column. That quotation s one of my favorites, but another of Pulitzer’s is prophetic in its ominous declaration: “Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together.”

When the proxies responsible for accurate information and dissemination of truth in our Republic are intent upon publishing a singular position in overwhelming measures, it is impossible to promote any semblance of yielding an “informed electorate,” and our Founders’ goal is in grave jeopardy.

If Americans are to be truly “informed” it is incumbent upon its citizens to reach out to other sources of news to get an objective and balanced view of events.

Otherwise, they become captive of the view expressed by the Democrat candidate for President, Joe Biden, who said in the Iowa Democratic Primaries on Aug. 8, 2019, “We choose truth over facts!” If that doesn’t tell us exactly what they choose to believe, then nothing will.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of The West Alabama Watchman.