AT HOME
How aggressive do you want your local media to be?
During the recent political campaigns it became painfully evident that the media,in all its forms, was slanted toward the left side of the philosophical spectrum. It was generally thought at the time, to be expedient to speak of the off-balanced situation is rather hushed, esoteric terms such as that, but, now - with the election over – we need to speak and think of as it was – planned, overt actions taken with intent by many members of the media to side always with Democratic Party. It was often done in the guise of seeking ways to show both the “best” and the “not so good” sides of every point of discussion, or, said more blatantly as meant giving people a choice between “good” and ”evil”.
To protect our future as a nation, we are in dire need of curbing such tendencies. We must move now as a unit to determine who will, control each of the media's many elements in times of national stress. Right now, during “hangover time”, might be the best time we will have; our finest opportunity to examine the evidence and become aware of how very close we came to going totally wrong in the Summer and Fall months of the year of 2004. We need to determine how personal we want our media to be in our lives; how pervasive and with what authority it acts. And - all must be done without imposing by general consents and without imposing censorship.
The basic difficulty to be found in getting anything of value done on this sort of thing is found in the fact that the American people do not, by and large, agree that they are influenced by the media. PR people in Hollywood and in our TV production studios wherever they may be, lead us around like flocks of sheep to see their various creations. The very same lures can lead us politically, and it is technique of Today and of our Tomorrows.
Many facets of the media became evident in the recent election which had not been evident before. Among them was a rapid growth in what is currently being called “talk radio shows”. The name is mis-applied to the big network shows featuring a talker but the grass-roots style of regional voices are the ones which has shown phenomenal growth and impact. The Internet and E-mail were use extensively in the Howard Deane primary campaign and have served well as connectives between. Other potent media tools - Direct Mail, Phones and Cell Phone addictions, fax machines and copiers. All were used in the recent election to influence voting. When we speak of the Media, let's not limit it to newspapers, TV stations, radio stations and magazines... and all related branches.
I realize I am speaking into the wind with all of this talk. We Americans are not about to curb our media, save under the most dire conditions when, even then it is done, not by rules or law, but by common sense and gumption. That's our way. In the past we have depended on common sense and peer pressure. My guess is we will try it again and again until that one time, when it did not work.
A.L.M. November 7, 2004 [c558wds]
