Friday, March 27, 2009

Sad State of Journalism


Four incidences of inept journalism reveal the flat lining condition of the Fourth Estate. What's missing? The list includes a factual basis, elementary questioning, and use of theory.

#1-"Too big to fail" means Treasury should expand power to wind down firms. Why not deal with too big to fail by breaking up financial giants? Because the big money boys don't want it. The D. C. boys, White House and Congress, love their donations.

#2 Bill O'Reilly took offense for the Alexa Foundation, which never shared any concern publicly. The manufactured story continues spinning out of control. The sinkhole has Fox-O'Reilly against NBC-MSNBC-Think Progress. News time is spent on a non-story and the cycle of offenses.

#3 A United Nations panel recommended shifting from the dollar as the world's reserve currency to a basket of currencies. This was reinforced a week later by a Chinese leader. Glenn Beck and Rep. Michelle Bachmann turned this story into a "one world currency" Chicken Little episode. Their position has no basis in fact.

#4 Republicans offered their budget proposal to NPR, which failed to question the logic behind tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. If NPR doesn't challenge the drive to the lowest global common denominator on taxes, who will? What happens when disaster capitalism turns to worker pay/benefits or financial regulation?

No wonder people tune out much of the media.

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