The media's influence on American politics and society.

Being a freelance writer and broadcaster, I take a great risk when I speak out against the current practices and influence of print, television and radio media outlets in America. In fact, I am quite certain that my doing so has cost me both work and respect in the local market which I do most of my work in; but I am nothing if I do not voice my opinions: in my opinion, the influence of media on the general public is far beyond being out of control, and someone within the "industry" must be willing to speak out against it to put it back in its rightful place in society. If that person must be me, a small time freelance sports writer in a top 75 American market, so be it; but it should be someone who has an inside knowledge of how and why the industry operates the way it does...

The founding fathers of our nation believed that a "free press" was the surest way that a body politic would keep its elected leaders in check and to be informed of their goings on. In sum, they believed that a free press was essential to keeping any government from attempting tyrannical control over its people.

For almost 150 years, the media in our country generally served this role-as a check on government: making sure that our state and federal governments weren't over stepping their bounds relative to the Constitution. Some time in the early half of the 20th century this all changed. Whether it was the advent of radio and television, which in turn lead to the creation of the FCC to monitor and regulate the "content" of our airwaves, I don't know; but in and around this time the whole purpose of our media changed from being primarily a source of information, to being a source of opinion formation-and by extension, legislative policy making. All of a sudden the general public started caring more about what a writer or broadcaster-usually a person with no more practical knowledge of legislative policy than themselves-thought, than getting the information themselves and forming their own opinion, and media outlets were quick to feed the public what they wanted.

Televisions shows like 60 minutes and 20/20 sprung up over night; entire radio stations were dedicated to news gathering and giving of opinion; editorials in newspapers were moved from the back pages to the prominent "top half" of the first page. At first, all these new mediums did their best to base their opinions on the facts at hand, but they rapidly learned that the public really doesn't care about the facts. The more over the top, and "far out there" the opinions and positions were, the more people listened or read; and the more that people listened or read, the more money "journalistic" institutions made. The more money they made, the more political influence they would wield...

There was a time when all media outlets were bound, in some cases by law, but in all cases by "journalistic integrity", to go out of their way to not overly attempt to influence people, but the profession has given up that ideology en masse. Today, the "news" and media outlets would rather impress their views upon people, than to simply present the facts, and the people don't seem to care.
To be fair, the news media are businesses, and as such they are only responding to market trends-that being the desire of consumers for "opinionated" programing; but the media, just like any business which serves the public at large, has a duty to the public to at least provide some balance to the opinions they put out for public consumption, but they do not. In fact, nearly all outlets are deliberately slanted towards one ideology, which, in general, is "liberal". Compounding the issue is that nowadays, media outlets no longer take any pains to hide who they support for state and national offices, thereby providing the public a false representation of which candidates are most "popular".

There is no real solution to the pathetic nature of our media today.
So long as the masses prefer ignorance over fact. So long as the masses prefer entertainment value over substance. So long as the masses "dont care", the media in our country will continue to be a contributor to our nations political and social woes, as opposed to a leader in finding solutions to our problems.