No Free Press
by Jill Hoffmann on Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 5:12pm
I've come to the realization that we no longer have a free press in this country. It used to be that members of the media were observers and journalists, more words on paper than celebrities in their own right, reporting in a hopefully unbiased way on the things people were already interested in. Slowly but surely, these journalists became entertainers, enjoyed their own celebrity, and integrity in the media gave way to money. Corporations with political agendas bought up news organizations as corporate geniuses realized there was huge money in controlling the information people were given.
The media no longer observes, it directs and orchestrates where our attention is paid. They (along with our politicians, as I've said in previous notes) participate in the circus to divert our attention away from real issues, and onto the latest inflammatory drama. The danger in the loss of our truly free press is that we as a society have lost the ability to exert any kind of "peer pressure" on members who behave wrongly because the sleaze in question is bombarded with attention, cameras, and "journalists" from around the world, making their idiocy into a career. We cannot ignore the offender because they are shoved into our lives by the press. They attention they get reinforces their behavior to them and thousands of others who will do ANYTHING to get attention, even if it is negative attention.
One of the most powerful tools in parenting is the ability to ignore and turn our backs on a child's bad behavior, so as to give a clear message that this is not okay. The Amish culture practices shunning to this day to achieve the same results. Our press, bought and paid for by special interest corporations and money hungry moguls, no longer lets our society have that choice. Our American culture is becoming one of increasingly bad acts and negativity because we cannot turn our backs and show that this is NOT okay.
The media no longer observes, it directs and orchestrates where our attention is paid. They (along with our politicians, as I've said in previous notes) participate in the circus to divert our attention away from real issues, and onto the latest inflammatory drama. The danger in the loss of our truly free press is that we as a society have lost the ability to exert any kind of "peer pressure" on members who behave wrongly because the sleaze in question is bombarded with attention, cameras, and "journalists" from around the world, making their idiocy into a career. We cannot ignore the offender because they are shoved into our lives by the press. They attention they get reinforces their behavior to them and thousands of others who will do ANYTHING to get attention, even if it is negative attention.
One of the most powerful tools in parenting is the ability to ignore and turn our backs on a child's bad behavior, so as to give a clear message that this is not okay. The Amish culture practices shunning to this day to achieve the same results. Our press, bought and paid for by special interest corporations and money hungry moguls, no longer lets our society have that choice. Our American culture is becoming one of increasingly bad acts and negativity because we cannot turn our backs and show that this is NOT okay.
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