Right after the 2004 Presidential Election, I made a determination that I was no longer going to watch television news. That meant ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and MSNBC. I caught on to FOX news years before so they were already excluded. Of course being the political junkie that I am, I still needed to find REAL news, so I turned to the internet. I turned to Reuters, and Christian Science Monitor, Yahoo and Google News, to name a few. I also rely on left leaning bloggers as well.
The point is Television News has lost its credibility. When I'm channel surfing I notice that sensationalism (mostly non-political) is what these networks want to feed their audiences. Runaway Brides; Missing American Beauties in Aruba; Lacrosse Teams and Hookers; Powerful Political Poker Players and male or female hookers; Another Kennedy in trouble (overlooking Rush Limbaugh and his similar drug related problem); and it goes on and on.
We wonder why the majority of our citizens are so uninformed. What passes for "news" on TV is essentially "entertainment". Most of these shows' viewers would rather know about what Michael Jackson, Brittany Spears, J-Lo, Tom Cruise, Brad and Angelina are doing rather than how many soldiers or Iraqis died today or in total since the war; or the fact that we were lied to so that Bushco could have their war; or that thousands of our children were killed or maimed for life because of that lie; or the massive mismanagement corruption and expansion of government under the present administraton; not to mention outting a covert CIA agent for vindictive reasons, or perhaps something even more sinister; Jeff Gannon's access to the White House for more than two years in a post 911 world; the de facto and de jure systematic shredding of our Constitution; NSA spying on Americans; CIA and DOD problems, and the list goes on and on.
Lamestream media has chosen to keep Americans in the blind or at least contribute to the "dumbing down" of our citizenry. To paraphrase from Dr. Rice and Mr. Bush: "Who could have anticipated the power of the blogosphere?"
It is here that the best investigative political/news reporting that I have seen since the 70's takes place. It is the blogosphere and the legitimate news services online that keeps the REAL information flowing. I'm happy to be a fledgling member of such a great group of people.
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