I watched a video today titled How the Media Needs
to Respond to Trump Now, by Keith Olbermann GQ. The link is below.
Please don’t
let the reference to Trump put you off watching it. Trump isn’t the reason why
I posted it. I posted it because Keith talks about the media. How the media
should respond. After watching it, I think that it is how the media should
respond to all politicians lies.
In our own country (Australia) our
politicians lie to us all the time. The worst offender of the lot is none
other than Labor Leader, Bill Shorten. Yet, even the media who is traditionally
thought of as conservative like the Australian and Daily Telegraph rarely ever
highlight it.
It isn’t good enough to simply say politicians lie. In the world of the fast paced news cycle it’s all
about getting the story out. Keith Olbermann highlights why; money, the
almighty dollar. The media needs to (in fact MUST) point out the lie but
then present the facts. In doing that hopefully three things are achieved.
Politicians
start to become more responsible. They can’t hide behind untruths and what is
blatant and in many cases habitual lying.
The public
becomes better informed.
The media
starts doing their blasted job. Stop the headline chasing and start to present
the truth; fact and data. Report on the lie but back it up with the truth.
The ones most responsible for this should be
publicly funded media. If they can't present us with the truth who can we rely on?
Then we have the media machines; those driven by advertising dollars. Far too many journalists hide behind their 'unnamed source' justification. Whomever 'unnamed source' is, he or she is now the news feed for the world. That has to stop.
Until
the media starts behaving as we expect them to, we should stop reading
MSM. We should definitely stop watching TV media and above all stop promoting
them. Hit them in the back pocket where it hurts. Money talks for them and we
can make it sing for us. As for our publicly funded media? We support the party who
insists on the media we fund telling the truth even if it is critical of them.
Hitting the media though their back pocket will be a lot more effective than complaining about them on social media. Or posting negative comments about journalists in response to their columns.
Edward Murrow once said, "A nation of sheep with beget a government of wolves." One of the major corner stones of democracy is a free press. One that tells us the truth even when we don't want to hear it. We need their help to keep with wolves under control. They need to start doing their job.
