I believe, that when Americans turn on their televisions, flip on the radio, or pick up a newspaper to get the news, they expect, even insist, what they are going to see, hear, or read, is the truth. I cannot believe, that many consumers, would lay their hard earned money down on a newspaper, to be misinformed.
Not only is it bad business for the media to get stories consistently wrong, but when the media reports stories that are false, which rarely get corrected immediately, or not at all, Americans are left with a false impression of the story, and therefore misinformed. They ultimately take this misinformation into the voting booth with them, which disturbs me immensely. I strongly believe, this has a horrific and negative effect, on the way one would vote, and on Democracy itself. The media need to realize the influential power they have on society, and the reasoning behind our outrage. How does a voter make a proper decison in the voting booth, based on misinformation?
The Jack Abramoff corruption scandal, is a perfect example, of why getting the story correct, is so important, as opposed to reporting incorrectly, on matters of no consequence, that have no effect on which direction our country moves politically. The majority of the media, gave the impression by guilt of association, that the Democrats were involved in the corruption scandal, by reporting that Abramoff, and/or his clients, gave many Democrats campaign contributions. The blogosphere went ballistic, and refuted the story with government documents, clearly showing, that Abramoff had not donated any money, to any Democrat. Only Republicans received money from Abramoff. If this was a Demorat only scandal, and not the Republican scandal that this is, I would be saying the exact same thing. Corruption is a breach of the public trust, and I would like to believe, that most people would denounce this, regardless of political affiliation.
I also strongly believe, that by incorrectly reporting the corruption scandal as basically bi-partisan, and not a Republican only scandal, the media unwittingly, fascillitated the myth, that most politicians are corrupt. This is extremely troubling to me, because not only is this impression factually incorrect and misleading, but more importantly, suppresses voter turnout. For example, I know many people that will not vote at all, because they believe most, or all politicians are corrupt, and I'm just one guy. I have also read multitudes of comments on blogs, saying basically the same thing, validating my argument.
I'm not arguing the media should promote voter turnout, or make America better somehow. I just want the facts. I just want the truth. With such high stakes involved, is that such a radical concept to behold?