Great Letter to the Arizona Republic

[brettdale]

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/0623thurlets2310.html


I would like the news media, both print and electronic, to stop insulting my intelligence and please provide some real news.

I do not care about Michael Jackson, Paris Hilton or Tom Cruise. I do not care about car chases in California. I have heard all I want to hear about this week's unfortunate young blond woman who has disappeared.

I would like to know about the failing status of a number of pension funds and the government guarantee of those funds. I would like to know more about Iraq than just a body count or a video of a shootout. I would like to know about our balance of trade and about our lack of a national energy policy. I would like to know more about the Downing Street memo.



Please stop treating me as if I cannot understand these issues. If our democracy is to survive and thrive, the populace must be kept informed. Breathless coverage of celebrity gossip and the like is at least a waste of time and at most a threat to our national well-being. - Mark G. Pond, Mesa

[Lorien]

1. Every single one of us

needs to write such a letter to the MSM. I wrote five Sunday-how about everyone else?

[Selatius]

2. I see it as near pointless

They don't listen to you. They listen to their CEOs and the board of directors, not viewers. They operate as a business that derives profit from the selling of advertising space where other corporations buy in to pitch their products.

You, as a viewer, have no real say in this process unless you own significant amounts of stock in these companies. This is what you get for not being in the loop.

What I'd advocate are news networks funded by people directly for people. In effect, I'm calling for socialized news networks. Have them accept only individual donations and not any from companies, organizations, or government institutions. Cap individual donations so that no one wealthy could buy more influence than anyone else.

[Raksha]

3. That's not correct...

>>They operate as a business that derives profit from the selling of advertising space where other corporations buy in to pitch their products.<<

We, the viewers (or readers in the case of print media), are the "product" the media sell to their advertisers. Without the eyes and ears of the viewers, their advertising space is worth nothing. It's a good thing to remind them of that occasionally.

[Lorien]

4. You described PBS

which-now that it will get NO federal funding-MUST listen to the viewers.

Doing NOTHING gets us no where. Waiting for someone else to "do something" will put you in the same place. We had someone who worked for a local news station here on DU last year that said that if TEN viewers wrote a (hardcopy) letter about an issue, the station would consider it a "hot topic". And we've seen that boycotts work.But the RW is better at following through on these things than the left. They toe the line, they march in unison; if Rush says "call senator B" They do it. If he says "Boycott product A' they will-by the millions. We, by comparison, have large numbers of people JUST LIKE YOU. They give me the same tired excuses for their inaction EVERY time I write about this issue. Is it any wonder that we are where we are today? We can't pin the blame solely on the corporations and the GOP.