Only The Names and Dates Change

While on a family cruise from our San Diego area home, I joked that we would not miss the news because only the names and dates change. This was my experience in previous decades, but is no longer correct. One has to add that the slant has increased and, thus, also remains the same. It is more difficult to catch up with the news, and that is more evident after being away for a while. The major media presents a partial, heavily biased version of the news. Reporting has so deteriorated that one has to search the Internet to get the complete news.

We missed the fires, but didn’t miss missing the news as we didn’t watch CNN-International (the only news channel aboard) nor see a newspaper. After 5-minutes of asinine Anderson Cooper looking for a stadium to cry over, a la Katrina, his disappointment at the organization and outpouring of help at Qualcomm Stadium was sickening.

My wife's 5-minutes watching CNN and its misleading graphics gave her the impression that all of San Diego, Orange County and L.A. were ablaze. After my wife phoned our house to find our answering machine working, she relaxed that the house was still there. In fact, the fires were rather isolated and in rural areas, large evacuations being ordered to avoid legal liabilities from law suits if they'd spread into heavily populated areas and politicians had not suggested early evacuations. Our neighborhood, near the coast, was told to evacuate although well-trimmed and ten-miles from the nearest sparks.

Upon returning yesterday afternoon, cleaning a mini-post-Pompeii of thick soot over everything, a process to be repeated several times over the next week or so (says my spic-n-span Germanic wife), I settled into catching up on the news. After browsing my collected daily newspapers and the major media sites, I had to spend twice as long searching a dozen blogs and their links to get the fuller stories and those not reported. AOL stopped accepting emails at 1000, a day or two’s normal receipts, so I missed the alerts I receive from friends, and that leaves a hole.

The ordinary American doesn’t have this search routine or network, depending upon the major media. It’s disgraceful, and woefully dangerous for our fate, that the ordinary American is left so in the dark and misinformed.

No, I don’t think we need more talking empty-heads on TV or argumentative columnists. We need more skilled reporters allowed to and judged by how completely they do their jobs, earning their bread, and less insulated editors and entertainment-circus-oriented media executives.

Major media viewers and readers have voted with their declining patronage. Major media owners respond by cutting news staff and pumping unreality filler. A conspiracist might speculate that they want Americans to be gulled into complacency or excitement at those points of view desired.

The truth is more that fish stink from the head, and major media management is out-of-touch with both reality and their responsibilities. They, like other fat segments of formerly successful American industry are headlong into their buggy-whip phase, trying to put rhinestones on it but ignoring that Americans want something better serving their needs.