Safeguarding Democracy

A free press is the last safeguard of democracy. What concerns me most about our current situation is the growing influence of a corporate press influencing and guiding the flow of information. To varying degrees, that is happening now. Though there are still real reporters and objective journalists working within the conglomerated press, what makes it to the airways is being controlled by a management that is in bed with the corporate community and the military industrial complex. The idea of on air journalist “anchoring,” and to a large extent acting as editors, of the news are being replaced by mindless and obedient personalities who can read.
Our knowledge of, and attention to, real news is being diverted by something that is like a spin-off of Entertainment Tonight and a political form of reality TV. The constant and continual coverage of candidates is the new Survivor series. We are no longer being informed, but entertained. The difference between what is happening to our “free” press and the state-controlled press of non-democratic countries is dwindling.
The most disturbing part of this is few people seem to notice, or care. I’m afraid those people interviewed during a Jay Leno “Jaywalking skit are more typical of the American populace than those who gather to discuss issues such as this on obscure internet sites.
They haven’t cared, not so much because of what some people call “the dumbing down of America,” but because up until recently, it hasn’t adversely affected their personal economy. All politics is about economics, and all revolutions are born of economic suppression. There are no grand conspiracies, just a collective coalition of mutual greed. What is happening is not the result of some secret meeting between a few powerful people (though some of those probably do occur), but the collective inattention of the vast majority who choose to ignore it, or think about it, as long as they can continue to chase “the American Dream.” As the American Dream turns into the American Scream, everyone will become journalists following the money to the sources of corruption that are destroying this nation from the foundation.
Despite all its indecent ignominies and misuses, the internet, I believe, is our last hope, the last frontier of free speech and a free press, where opinions and reports are not controlled by corporate moguls and edited out of existence for ulterior motives.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future