August 29, 2009
The media in our country today has been at the forefront in reporting the dark side of current events, the demise of businesses, the deaths of loved ones, and the destruction of people’s reputations. It has abused the ethical qualities of journalism, even going so far as to affect the outcome of elections.
With one negative article, the media can destroy a person’s life, reputation, and business. With one positive article, it can create a star, give a person a new lease on life, and make a book a bestseller. The media can be the one simple difference in making an entrepreneur’s business an absolute success, or destroy his hopes and dreams forever.
Sometimes I feel confused when I read the newspapers and listen to the 24-hour, non-stop news cycle on television and radio, but I have always had the innate ability to reach inside myself and pull out the real me to meet the inundation of doubt and lies being slung our way as if by a major league pitcher. Knowing myself and not doubting my deeply grounded life principles is like having a life raft in a shark-infested ocean, and I am able to see the absolute lie being perpetrated on those who fall for the intimidation of the media’s shocking truthless confusions.
In these strange days, many of us who have kept in contact with reality within ourselves are constantly looking for a hero to help save us from the darkness of the media’s version of truth. I find myself watching day after day, going from channel to channel hoping for just a few words from a reporter with honorable strength of conviction based on real noble principles instead of just someone who repeats the illusions sewn into the lapels of his official news jacket.
What happened to integrity, honesty, fairness, truth, reality, and the old-fashioned love of America and what is best for her citizens? During the 2008 presidential election, while all of us were listening intently for one simple, honest question from our news media, why did a man named Joe the Plumber have to birth the only real question? (He asked of then Senator Obama, "Your new tax plan's going to tax me more, isn't it?) Why did the majority of the media, while telling us that Joe seemed well spoken and sort of smart for a plumber, begin immediately drawing our attention away from his simple, honest question, digging like badgers for the devious, dark side of this unsuspecting American? Does the media think that Americans are stupid? There are millions of smart Joes, and many of us are like-minded when it comes to our conclusion of what the media has become. Doesn’t the media think of their viewers as partners in American business who have a huge stake in what happens to our beloved country? What is the agenda of this dishonest un-American group of powerful information gatherers? What gives them the right to pressure and confuse us with an overabundance of misstatements and to constantly bombard not-so-truthful allegations every minute of every day on the not-so-lucky Americans that aren’t grounded within themselves?
The media has a huge responsibility to Americans and the rest of the world to provide, without the injection of a biased agenda, the information and tools that we can use to help us decide for ourselves what we believe in. Why do we give such power to the words and opinions of the talking heads and their own personal agendas they push on us, and why don’t we require them to be completely, one hundred percent truthful? I can’t blame only the media, because some people do crave the lies being fed to them to justify their own existence.
I believe that we have become a nation of people addicted to excitement, and our media dishes it out daily like an off-limits, super-sized hot fudge sundae. We gulp it up, and for every spoonful, we need more fudge to make it more exciting. We all know that Truth does not excite the senses, so like the average drug addict, we need more and more of the exciting, on-the-edge misconduct and somewhat sly injection of opinions of the news anchors to keep us coming back to their channels. At some point the media crossed the line of integrity and now they cannot go back.
Don’t get me wrong, there are a handful of noble media people (and we all know who they are), but they have the fight of their lives and careers just to blurt out a few honest sentences. Like politicians, our media and our country’s leaders are only as good as the people that support them. We must as a nation get back in touch with the real us and not be made up of everyone else’s thoughts and ideas.
Now begins a soul-searching adventure back to what America really is—a nation of hard-working, innovative, fearless, passionate, entrepreneurial, compassionate patriots who do not give into what people think but act upon their visions like lightening from the heavens making its mark in the world. Call me idealistic, but I love America. I believe she will survive, but not without the fight of her life and the re-ignition of the American spirit from the need to be a free and spirited nation of innovators and true believers.
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