shakran

Sure there's hope. I don't want to paint a complete, irreversible gloom and doom portrait of the media here. We're going through a bad spell right now, but it's not like that hasn't happened before. Back in the 1800's, newspapers were pretty much never objective. They reported the news the way their editor wanted to see it. If that meant squelching coverage on something that the editor didn't like, that's just what they did. If you'd been alive back then you'd be saying similar things to what you're saying now - - is there any hope for the press?

Well we got through that, and had some pretty good decades (exposing McCarthy, Watergate, Vietnam, etc etc). We'll get through this as well - hopefully before our lack of coverage brings about a national decline from which we cannot recover.

What we need is a citizen uprising that *demands* the government return control of the media to the media rather than megacorporations. And *demands* the government reinstate the fairness doctrine. And if the congress won't do it, then the citizens need to vote it out, and vote in congresspeople who will.

Republicans got rid of it because they didn't want the things Reagan was up to exposed. But it ended up biting them (and the country) in the ass when it also led to lack of coverage of Clinton's foreign policy failings. Fact is, just about every president makes collossal blunders, no matter what party they're from. Without the media to serve as a watchdog, presidents, republican AND democrat, get away with it.

There is also, as has been alluded to above, hope from the internet, but that hope comes with some nasty pitfalls. The internet, with it's anonymity, means anyone can hop on here claiming to be a journalist and report bullshit. If you wanna know how easilly that could spread and be accepted by the public, check your email. I bet there's something in there about Bill Gates giving you a dollar for everyone who gets the email after you forward it
And I'm not sure how that problem can be solved. I'm open to ideas