Lizard On A Rock

ahh, politics….. good fun, isn’t it?

The one  thing I wanted to comment on that seemed to be prevalent in the news this week is all the noise about the media and their supposed bias.  Trump seems to be screaming loudest about the ‘liberal media”, the “dishonest media”, they’re the “lowest form of life”….. & on & on.   The charges aren’t really new, of course, and I’m not going to engage in debating the particulars, there are 1000’s of articles that address the various issues, I’m simply talking about the claim of media bias in and of itself.

I call bullshit.  It’s a cop-out.  A smokescreen.

Back when newspapers were the dominating source of information for the public, I guess there could be an argument made about how reporting might be biased simply due to the relative lack of diversity in sources available to most people.  A handful of newspapers were available, till sometime in the 40’s & 50’s when people also had a couple of tv stations which aired a few news stories each evening.  In essence, the news ended up being filtered before being disseminated through a relatively small number of reporters & broadcasters, so the charge of bias had some validity in the realm of possibility whether actually true in the final analysis or not.

But, beating the drum about it STILL?

Are they (pick your whichever “they” you like, any one will do) really suggesting that people are incapable of making a well informed, intelligent decision because of any ingrained bias a particular media outlet may have?

I’m sorry, but that claim just doesn’t hold water in this age of non stop information saturation.  I’m not going to get into a critique of  the various news outlets and whether or not they put any sort of “spin” on things because it’s really up to the viewer to make that judgement.

Which is really the point, after all.

Since the time it takes for any person’s Iphone video of any event to make it into the news cycle can be measured in seconds, if not less (realtime, often) the idea that the truth can still be squelched on a regular basis to effectively steer public perception is simply absurd.  As it applies to candidates in an election specifically, virtually every utterance is captured on video and disseminated widely.  All one has to do is watch/listen to the speeches, interviews, and public appearances to form an intelligent opinion and ignore the commentary that goes along with it.  The pundits and ‘armchair quarterbacking’ is simply a vehicle for confirming an opinion at best, or entertainment at worst.

Using Trump as an example– because it’s  so easy— think of it this way:  Listen to his rally stump speeches.  Listen to his tv interviews.  Listen to his big convention speech.  Then, change the channel quick to Game of Thrones before the pundits start talking.  Is there really not enough content & color there to form an opinion without the “biased” “horrible” “dishonest” media influencing your opinion?  Were the words coming out of his mouth not adequate to get a feel about who he is?  Do you have questions regarding the veracity of anything he said?  Remember that thing called the “internet”?  Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc., are your friends– use them.  There’s no excuse for being uninformed since the variety and sources of information are all there to be used which relegates the claim of biased media moot by definition.

If you sit in your armchair and do nothing but watch Faux News, then you deserve what you get.

Same goes for reading this blog…..