Loosing Ground

There is an old saying in politics.  "He who slings dirt, only looses ground."   I emphasize the word old because it apparently doesn't apply to todays climate.  I may sound crazy, but current research shows that the more negative a politician goes, the better his or her chances are of actually winning.  Worse than that, is that much of the "negative" in advertising literature and commercials doesn't even have to be true or substantiated.  The hard, cold facts are that even if an opponents accusations are challenged, by the time they are refuted or corrected, the damage has been done.  With one day to go until Election Day, I am tired of hearing the radio and tv ads touting all the horrible and disgusting things a candidate for office has done; running that persons name through the mud over and over again and then having the nerve to end the commercials by saying, "that's why that individual is running one of the nastiest campaigns in history."  What?  Telling us nasty things about a person and then claiming that very person is himself running a nasty campaign. How twisted is that?  And are we the electorate buying it? Apparently so.  Why?  Because we are sound bite, catch a comment here and there, disconnected people who do little to study the issues or the candidates, vote my name recognition alone or how someone looks or simply party line or in many cases, not show up at the polls at all.  And then we complain over and over again about what we get.   It's not the nasty politician loosing ground. We, the people are the ones loosing ground because we are digging our own graves.

I've Changed My Opinion

Having spent over 25 years in journalism, one of the first questions I still get from people who find out my background is, "Tell me, does the news media have an agenda?  Is there really a bias in the newsroom?"   

Until recently, my answer was two fold.  First of all in the mainstream media there is an overall bias and it leans decidedly to the left.  But I was always quick to add that the bias was not necessarily intentional.  My point being that reporters by and large don't get together each day before they head out to cover the news and say, "Gee, how can we slant today's coverage?"  It's just that most of the people working in journalism (for whatever reason) come from a liberal background.  So, they look at the world through liberal eyes, so to speak.  After all, every one of us comes to our jobs with preconceptions and sometimes they  interfere with our news coverage.  The stories we choose to cover, the way we approach stories and filter the information is going to be influenced by our past.  The goal is to (as best we can) remove those bias's from our coverage.  I've always felt most of time journalists tried their best reach for that goal.

But I'm changing my opinion.  A new poll at journalism.org clearly shows a strong bias in the media and it is decidedly to the left.  I'm afraid that many of journalists today are more interested in activism than journalism.  With the strong influence of cable news and "opinion" based shows disguised as straight journalism, the line is not only blurred, it's in many cases erased.  It's across the board in broadcast, cable, print and otherwise, the bias by the mainstream media is as left of center as it's ever been and getting worse.  The evidence is all around us to point to a vast majority in the media who intentionally slant coverage and interject their own opinion into stories that are broadcast and printed under the banner of objective news.  

The problem is not every consumer of news realizes this.   They hear the commentary and opinion and take it as journalism, not as editorial.  It's amazing that we live in a world where more information than ever is available at our fingertips and yet the electorate is less informed than ever before.   We get our news in short sound bites and sensational copy vying for our easily distracted attention.  Unless the American people wake up to this reality, we will find our nation heading even farther down a path of propaganda difficult to work our way out of.