The Hatchet, The Scalpel and The Pen

It is difficult to watch the 2008 Presidential debate and be objective. Politics are like religion in that people can never discuss or observe the matters without a deep bias. Everyone has their own set of beliefs attached to the issues that they cannot simply put aside and ignore for an hour and a half. This said , one cannot expect a journalist, who (despite what some may say) is only human, to give a completely unbiased analysis.

Still , I went looking for media coverage that I could attack in this blog. Because of my own bias and desire to point out the flaws of media I went looking for the most right-wing of reviews so that I could crucify the unfair representation of the events on September 26,2008. I was shocked to find that most media coverage was strikingly fair. 

I first went to a simple fact-check article on MSN and after reading it I got out a sheet of paper and tallied how many "Misrepresentations" and "muddled facts" they accused each candidate of. It came out even , five tacked on to each. 

So I went to the news that I could count on being bias, I went to Fox. 

NOTHING! There was an article commending both candidates for their arguments and pointing out their downfalls evenly. "Whichever side you're on , you can find a way, without much trouble even, to claim victory in Friday night's Presidential debate". Susan B. Landau's overly cute blonde head was staring me down with an annoying smile that said "Ha! Better luck next time". 

So while I might resent Susan for ruining my intentions for this blog I must commend her along with the other journalists who fairly reported on the debate. Give the media one point on the score board. 

Progressive Thinking

When looking at America's past , no other time is as comparable to french existentialism as the sixties. People stopped believing in the sturdy morals that had fueled their everyday lives :trust in their religion , money , and most importantly their government. People were literally screaming in the streets desperate to be heard by the men in tailored business suits that were sending their brothers, fathers and sons off to a war that no body wanted to fight. Young boys received draft notices like death certificates. Some turned away from the very country that held their childhood memories, their families and friends to flee to Canada. When given the option to either die on a blood stained field in Vietnam or rot in prison they created their own : run away and never look back , live as an outcast...but LIVE. 

We may look at the desperate acts of these young people and ponder as to whether we have grown past such problems. There is no draft today, no one is going to mail us a letter saying we have to fight a war tomorrow. However, young boys are being given letters announcing their "stop-loss". Boys who have served their term are being dragged back to the homeland of their bullet induced nightmares. Whats worse is that people who signed up for non combat positions are handed a gun and told to do jobs they have never been trained for.

One such non combat soldier Hinzman fled to Canada recently to avoid deployment to Iraq. 

Now i will give the news this : they certainly are a glorious mirror into which we may see the ugly reflection of our downfalls. People are still fleeing to Canada? When i read this i couldn't believe it. We are backsliding into the follies of our past and no one is looking at this headline and seeing the scratch in the record? How can we not hold up an old newspaper from the sixties to the online print of the Henzman deportation case and not connect the dots?

So thank god for the headline, and shame only that the font is so small. People need to know what this country has become, people need stories like this to open up their eyes and see that progression has missed one little aspect of american life. 

A Simple Observation

Now I am no one to judge seeing as I have dedicated my life to the study of dramatics but one cannot deny the media's aggressive attraction to tragedy or scandal. It is enough to make a person question as to whether the news is a service to the public or simple entertainment for the masses. The news seems to be that annoying gossiping teenage girl that you couldn't help but listen to from time to time in high school. We have all found ourselves enjoying a juicy secret that we have no right to know.  The guilty thrill is almost too much to say no too. As we have grown up we have traded the whispering blonde with a story about Trisha's weekend abortion for a brunette on the daily news telling us about the "Gloucester Seventeen". Do we have a right to know about the unfortunate misleadings of these young girls? Probably not , it does not effect us positively in the least and yet we eat it up like it was maple candy. 

In the month of the Gloucester Seventeen (June 2008) research was being done to prove that arts benefit your health, A UN high level meeting on AIDS was held in New York, and Navsync released a CW46 low signal GPS. Ask any student on campus what was important in the news  in June however and if they don't say "I dunno" they would probably only speak of the pregnant teens in Massachusetts.  Why? Doesn't this seem trivial when compared to news that benefits the people? Still it is always going to be more entertaining to sit down and read about seventeen year-old girl's pact on getting pregnant at 16 than it is to read about a GPS system that will allow service in low frequency areas. 

So while , without the news we would be plunged into an abyss of ignorance , The news serves as more of a sitcom than a service to the average american. The news that actually covers the important stuff is always being questioned by the people, always being accused (perhaps correctly) of being bias and manipulating. 

Now while my blog is probably coming off as very anti-news I do not think being against the news system as a whole is possible ( and if it is it definitely is by no means intelligent). There are many a topic scrawled out on the sunday paper or across your T.V screen that are helpful and informative, but the problem is that most people never look away from Brittany Spears exposed vagina long enough to read them. In short, the negative side of news coverage often takes a toll on the beneficial side. The flaw of humanity spills out into anything that we do.

It is merely an observation.