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- G e n d e r G a p p e r s T M
RUNAWAY NEWSIES
 Once
upon a time there were journalists across the land. Their sacred duty was
to report the news to the
people. First it was only the spoken word, and then came written pages
that soon morphed into newspapers.
Radio and television news followed, and it was mostly good. Then the power and wealth of government corrupted the news industry. Most all journalism is now either corrupted or corruptible. There remains an ember of the former glory of journalism burning on the Internet; in blogs, and because one may access foreign news reports. These are still only the fringes; the mainstream news has succumbed to the lure of profit. And entertainment is profitable and sponsored. So instead of facts reported to us by conscientious reporters, we get the howling matches of the professional spin-meisters, the so-called experts, and the opinion mongers -- each calling the other's opinion wrong. Now even the dimmest bulb among us has to know that one side is lying, yet on program after program, one talking head claims they are speaking the truth and the opposition is lying. But never is either side forced to show proof of their words. Never is the liar forced to concede. What a waste of time and loss of solid information it is. Just this week we had hours of runaway Jennifer and dirty Laura from every channel and station. The learned experts dug up the dredges of each woman's story and when there was nothing left to drudge up they speculated. All this time they never missed a beat of smothering coverage of the Jackson trial. Sure there was a minute here and a minute there devoted to a brief nod at still another bombing in Iraq; still more American and Iraqi dead. Also, despite the huge number of channels and stations exclusively devoted to sports, much of every news report on network and cable spewed forth the latest scores and who had been benched for taking drugs. Solid, informative news? Not so much. The bombshell that landed on Britian's Tony Blair when a memo was revealed that showed him and Georgie Bush planning the Iraqi invasion and looking for a valid excuse got only a passing mention. Kuwait failed to franchise women. It and Saudi Arabia are the only countries in that area where women are not allowed to vote. Both are closely aligned pals with Bush who claims to support democracy. Hardly a whimper from the news mavens. Terrible punishment meted out for women in Afghanistan despite the recent trip by Laura Bush who raved about how great things were going for women in that cruel country. Who cares? Certainly not the White House and its entertainment news. Have you noticed the changes in PBS (Public Broadcasting System)? Religious thought police are turning it into a FOX clone. Does anyone care that we are losing the people~Rs media? Then suddenly, unexpectedly, there was a truly bright spot in the news. Typically, the Newsies were miffed as they were primed for a long, drawn out trial and had all the nasty pictures ready to show endlessly. A damn smart judge was not taken in by the military's set-up to throw Lynndie England to the wind. He smelled it and called off the trial. Hopefully now some of the real instigators of torture will come before the law but don't count on it in Bushamerica. 2005-019 Copyright 2005 Renee T. Louise and Ruth M. Sprague, Ph.D. These articles may be republished for noncommercial use only, provided that they are copied intact, and that this copyright notice is attached. Address all queries to: gapperserve@peoplepc.com. |