Accolades Where They Are Due

Well… It pains me somewhat to do so, but I have to tip my virtual hat to one particular liberal that I usually have more contempt for than Bill (or Hillary) Clinton…

Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. Al Gore… Mr. Internet…

Al recently was in the land of my ancestors… Scotland. While he was there, talking his usual “green” talk amongst other things, he touched on something very important, very disturbing, not to mention very vital, about media and democracy. He said, “Democracy is under attack.”

His thoughts are directed at fears he has (along with a lot of other Americans, including myself) that too few people (or companies) are gaining a consolidated control of available media outlets, including T.V., radio, newspapers, etc. Al went on further to say, “Democracy is a conversation and the most important role of the media is to facilitate that conversation of democracy. Now the conversation is more controlled, it is more centralized.”

BAM! He hit the nail on the head and he is entirely correct. The media of today is too controlled by too few people with too few points of view. And, not to belabor the point, but the vast majority of the media is controlled and directed by those with a left side liberal point of view.

That is one of the reasons I spend very little time watching the TV for my source of news. By the time something makes it onto TV in the way of news, the liberal spin is SO heavy that it is painful to watch. Not only that, but I simply can not trust it because I KNOW it is slanted. It is biased… It is analyzed to death… Facts are not presented from an objective view point so you can make up your own mind… Your opinion of the event is GIVEN to you… Sometimes by a whole team of liberal spin doctors who already have it all figured out…

Look at several notable TV news personalities who could not (or would not) contain their liberal view points when trying to present the “news” to the rest of America: Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Mike Wallace, Bryant Gumbel, and Connie Chung just to name a few. Then you have the type like Wolf Blitzer and Katie Couric…with liberal points of view, but who have a little too much air between their ears to be taken seriously.

Or, you have some Fox News (as much as I hate to say it because I still kind of like Fox) camera man who was captured by Islamic jihadists saying how “…he can’t condemn his captors…” because “…In some ways, I feel such sympathy for the Palestinian cause. You know, in my heart. You know, I can’t hate them for what they did…there’s a funny bit of me that’s sympathetic to them still.” WHAT!?!?!? What freaking drugs are you on man!!! Well… I’m sure he’s just suffering from Stockholme Syndrome. I mean, these are the people that cut other peoples heads off with dull knives while hiding behind head scarves yelling “Allahu Akbar” and taping the event. But he’s sympathetic to them… Right…

I’m not going to try to fit in newspapers and magazines at the moment, but they too play a major role in telling people what they should think instead of presenting facts and fostering dialog and constructive thinking.

So who is to blame for making this situation worse? The answer might surprise you… It wasn’t the liberals (who may have started it). It is the Republicans that may have push it all over the edge. Or, at least, it is the Republican controlled FCC. You see, a few years ago, this wonderful waste of our taxpaying dollars voted to make legal the ownership of up to three TV stations, eight radio stations, the local paper, AND the cable system in a SINGLE media market!!! One person or corporation can own it all now thus denying the majority of the local populace of what is needed most when it comes to democracy; differing dialog and debate without a single point of interference with regards to point of view. And it is this that Al Gore finds to be a problem and rightly so.

We need an independent press. We must have an independent press. But until journalism returns to its roots, forgets about trying to make the King, and turns away from seeing how much profit can be made by making news instead of simply reporting news, we the people are going to continue to have to muddle our way through events hoping that what it is we hear and read is actually fact and not someone else’s fiction.

And as for Al Gore? Good job… I’m with you… On this one…