Is anyone else sick to death of all the media bashing and blaming that is going on today? Everyday it's a constant barrage of of one person or group blaming the media for something.
The Democrats are blaming the fake news (and the Russians) for the election results and the Republicans are constantly blaming the media for being biased and printing stories they they say delegitimizes the Trump victory. In today's Kansas City Star, the article by Bryan Lowry and Hunter Woodall (link below) is about how Kansas Governor Sam Brownback believes his policies are misunderstood by the media(frankly, I'm not sure how almost driving your state's finances into the ground can be misunderstood but that is a discussion for another day) and of course Mr. Trump is once again using Twitter and blaming Vanity Fair for an article(link below) he didn't like. The article was a review of a restaurant in Trump Tower. It was harsh but seriously, I would have never bothered to read it if he hadn't been crying about it on Twitter again. And then he was also complaining about the media's reporting on his business interests and potential conflicts. (See my post about Conflicts of Interest for a link to a good article on Newsweek).
It's time to act like adults and stop the blame game. In my opinion, the biggest problem in all this media bashing, is the failure of us media consumers to take OUR responsibility for this shit show. We just keep right on clicking on stories that are obvious fakes, we refuse to entertain dissenting opinions in our on-line media consumption, and we rarely take time to read lengthy articles to better understand issues. I'm as guilty as the next person so don't think I'm saying otherwise. With our smart phones glued to our hands, we have come to expect that all news comes in 140 character bites. Plus we demand to be kept updated on a real time basis.
The media, while serving a vital function in our country, is also a business. They provide what their customers demand. We all need to refuse to support outlets that deal in misinformation. I refused to pay for cable TV for 15 years while raising my children because I didn't believe in what was being shown. (While the children may have felt tortured at the time, they turned out just fine.) What would happen if Mr. Trump's Twitter faithful stopped following him? The stories I see indicate that most citizens wish he would use it less. He won't change until he realizes it's not effective. We need to put up or shut up about the media since we are a large part of the problem.
The main stream media needs to also realize that if our elected officials decide to bypass traditional media practices, then they are going to have to adapt. We need more detailed, factual reporting and less blurbs about Mr. Trumps Twitter hissy fits with Saturday Night Live skits. Contrary to people saying that we live in a 'post truth' world, this is simply not the case. Factual, detailed, unbiased reporting matters. We as consumers must demand this.
A quote I saw that was attributed to Thomas Jefferson says "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter". So true.
http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article120984588.html
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/12/trump-grill-review
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