Random Rantings

New Shoes: $175
Freaky Outfit: $350
Club Cover-charge: $200
Common Sense: Priceless

Yes, it does seem that common sense is a rare commodity in our society these days.   We are bombarded with advertisements, news and even news of advertisements.  Somewhere along the line, people have placed their ability to think for themselves up on a shelf in the garage (maybe next to the box of cell phones and TV remote controls).  

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a “right-wing-god-and-guns” Conservative… and I certainly don’t believe in forcing my point-of-view onto the masses.  (I’m very aware that my ideals are simply an opinion – and nothing more).  Actually, I take a lot of comfort in that bit of knowledge, and until I wear a white lab coat and mix volatile chemicals somewhere far from home (preferably Sweden) – I intend to remain quite humble.   

One Person is smart…an assembly of People is dense; and the way we venerate the American Media only confirms such a thought.

Why do most of us assume that the guy on the news, reading the teleprompter is intelligent, and the beautiful woman next him has the “inside scoop” to our world’s current events?  Come to think of it, why are we so sure that these news anchors even care about our plea for accurate information?   You can safely wager that they’re more concerned about their hair than the integrity of their newscast….  “According to Whitehouse sources, 1500 people were killed in Iraq today… and we’ll be right back after these messages…”.  Smiles on cue and tousels her hair.

Then I tell myself that, “Clearly we can turn to our leaders for assurance that these mass generated forms of information are correct”.   One would hope that our “superior” judicial system would have regulations in place that compels broadcasting networks to follow the moral map of the American people.  They MUST.  

So, I dug around the Internet to find out exactly what the legal guidelines are for these so-called networks.  What I found was very disappointing.

I started my search in Google with the key words “Truth in News” and I immediately came across an account describing a group calling themselves “Students for Responsible Journalism”.  These college students had arranged a peaceful rally and protest in 2005 in front of Fox’s Denver regional media facility; the students spoke out at the rally about media bias and Fox News’ “openly deceptive coverage” of the Iraq war.

That same editorial referenced a phrase that suddenly peaked my interest… the “Truth in Broadcasting Act”.  So, naturally… I Googled.

The Free Press website,  http://www.freepress.net/press/release.php?id=100 had this to say,

“WASHINGTON — Free Press and the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) today applauded the Senate Commerce Committee’s unanimous passage of the Truth in Broadcasting Act as a first step toward ensuring the public’s right to know about the origins of audio and video news releases. While the two groups urged the full Congress to pass the bill, they cautioned that the legislation only covers a small fraction of FAKE NEWS.”

FAKE NEWS?!  WTF?

As you can imagine, I had to look deeper into this Act S 967…subsequently,  I came across the Center for Media and Democracy’s website, http://www.prwatch.org/node/3636, which explained,

“The bill does not require disclaimers from broadcasters. The disclaimer would not be required for reports from government-supported news agencies like PBS and NPR, or for international broadcasts, “since the U.S. government has no prohibition on exporting propaganda.”

The fact that there is fake news out there doesn’t surprise me.  After-all, that’s what propaganda is… the little flyers distributed to the “enemy” telling them how wonderful we are.  But the fact that it’s so prevalent (and targeted at our own nation) that Congress actually has it labeled makes me a little queasy.

After I got up off the floor …  I proceeded to convince myself that at least our government is conscientious enough to realize the need to monitor the distribution of fabricated news. When I came across an actual copy of the Truth Act at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.+967: , my hope of a benign “conscientious” government was all but crushed.  

After reading the Act that was initially submitted for approval, versus the Act that was actually approved, it becomes clear that any significant points defining the primary objectives are “struck out” and are replaced with typical white-washed jargon; language that’s so watered down – it becomes nothing more that an enormous waste of time (for the writers and –in this case – the readers). 

So much was changed and/or removed, that the committee was forced to change the title from “Truth in Broadcasting” to “Prepackaged News Story Announcement Act of 2005”.  Yuck …  How disappointing.

So, once again the US government feels compelled to protect us from ourselves.   But hey, maybe this time we actually need that protection… After all, a greater percentage of our population is more concerned about a celebrity’s weight loss and gain than they are about their own Constitutional Rights.

With that being said, I’m still very thankful for our nation’s Freedom of Speech.  Even if it means that “spreading the news” doesn’t always advocate “spreading the truth”.