Have you ever had a moment, when all of the world comes into a clear focus?
I was watching the Rachel Maddow show tonight, and was struck with such a moment of revelation. What I saw exposed a fundamental flaw in what is referred to as the fourth estate. The eyes of our watchers have become clouded with a terrible social disease.
Rachel was at a bar in Grand Isle, LA. She was interviewing two owners about the devastation of their business. What would normally be a busy season of charter fishermen continuing their buzz, while real fishermen cleaned their fish, has now disappeared. Rachel asked if the additional media and cleanup worker presence had done anything to fill the void. The answer was shocking.
The media doesn't drink.
How can we have reached such a crisis point, that we now rely on a media suffering from endless sobriety? This flies in the face of the essential traditions of proper journalism. What ultimate truth has ever been derived from sobriety?
When I turn on my news broadcast, I assume I'm going to get the truth through the objective lens of the bottom of a rock glass. The news anchor should have just been woke up out of their make up chair, and forced to stumble to their desk for the nightly broadcast.
People say the news has become more fear based, and in light of Rachel's illumination of the state of the media, it's no wonder. Trying to sort out the problems of the world is a Herculean task, let alone trying to do it sober.
It also explains the rise of the blogosphere. We may just be the only ones typing out drunken ramblings based on information we acquired during an accidental sober moment. The main stream media has apparently lost the essence of the process. Shedding light on the horrors of modern life is not to be left to anyone with a clear head. They simply lack the proper frame of reference.
As the esteemed doctor of journalism, Hunter S Thompson, would say
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
Let's just hope they at least maintain a secret heroin addiction during commercial breaks. The fate of democracy hangs in the balance.