Let's place the blame where it belongs. It's the media that has blood on their hands today.

[OregonBlue]

Controversy sells. The Tea Party is a very small minority in this country but they got 80% of the coverage in the last election cycle. The news media no longer believes that they have to report the news. They believe they have to entertain. They believe they need to make a profit.

As long as the news media continue to give air time to the wackadoodles and ignore serious, thoughtful, hard-working politicians on both sides of the isle, this will continue.

Let's hold them accountable. Everyone should be contacting FOX, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, etc. with the same message.

In your efforts to entertain, in your effort to turn a profit, YOU CREATED THIS MONSTER AND THE BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS.

[Tippy]

1. K&R

[prairierose]

2. I absolutely agree with you....

They do not report, they try to encourage the controversy because that is more exciting. And today, so many reporters have been hired for their looks rather than their brains or abilities that they forget to fact check. They do not understand the subject on which they are reporting, so they can not explain it to their audience. That is also part of the job of the press, just to inform the public.

But this discredited theory that reporting is about presenting both sides as equal is one of the biggest problems with what passes for reporting today. And they also do not bother when there are more than two sides to an issue. They leave out the information that does not fit neatly in a 30 second sound bite. Well, I want to know more than 30 seconds worth and I want to know more than just the surface of any issue. I want to understand what is actually going on and I do not want any reporter telling to me about somebody's love life or sex life. I do not care about the celebrity scandal du jour.

One of the reasons that we have so many ignorant and low information voters is because the media no longer does its job. It does not inform the citizens.

[Angry Dragon]

3. All of us share in this tragedy of hate

Politicians that talk of using force to get what they want
Politicians that do not speak out to stop the hate
Americans that have not called or written their politicians to tell them to condemn the hate speech
The media either promoting the hate or to keep repeating it
The people that walk around with guns to terrorize others
The people that let their thoughts be controlled by others too afraid to do the dirty work themselves


It is my wish that we use this tragedy to do good.
To have all of us force our reps take a stand to condemn the hate
To boycott the sponsors of ALL hate shows and let them know why
To notify the FBI of ALL hate speech
To reinstate the Fairness Doctrine
To breakup the news monopolies

[spanone]

4. k&r

[Gregorian]

5. Too busy censoring "shit" from the airwaves. Too happy allowing worse to be broadcast.

Metaphorical guns aimed at heads can go over the air, but Janet Jackson gets a half million fine.

America has it's priorities messed up.

Hell yeah it's the media. And this is where trickle down actually works. You sell video games to kid through commercials. Where's the channel that teaches biology and Calculus. And don't laugh. I'm serious. It's why we are where we are. Dropping depleted Uranium on kids in other countries. OK, I'll stop ranting now.

[janet118]

6. Here's what I blame the media for . . .

1. refusing to hold the people they allow on the air accountable for lying and falsifying data.

2. focusing on issues because of controversy or available video rather than their relevance to the public.

3. allowing opinion to pass for news and mixing the two indiscriminately.

[OregonBlue]

7. Janet, you are spot on!

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. We have a battle that is raging now, that we need to begin looking at

They don't want to take responsibility for their actions:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x150763

[OregonBlue]

9. Nor does the media want to take responsiblity. They made a choice to cover Palin and Angle and every

right-wing nutcase out there. They decided to entertain us instead of inform us. They are just as responsible as Palin because THEY MADE HER THE STAR SHE IS. You can sure as hell bet they don't want to cover their own culpability in this!!