Mainstream Media and the False Equivalency Thing

Mainstream Media; there is no equivalency, in neither tactics nor extremes, of the progressive movement to those of today’s right wing conservative movement.  That the mainstream media continues to contend that an equivalency exists should be shameful to an industry that professes to pursue truth.  “Fair and Balanced Treatment of the News” can’t be the goal, if truth is the casualty.

That America has to look to a HBO show, “The Newsroom”, to be exposed to truth inspired news coverage, should be a source of great shame in the TV news industry.  If it wasn’t for MSNBC, news agency pursuit of facts would be a wash, and just the purview of fiction. 

It seems to me that the only real last bastion of the pursuit of truth is the “print media”, with its declining, or perhaps evolving, influence.  While “print media” is in no way absent of ideological bias, it seems to be populated by more journalists actually interested in getting the real story, rather than just getting a story conforming to their own ideology.  Venerable organs of conservative though, such as the New York Times and the Washington Times are often the source of journalism that produces stories that are often in stark contrast to newspaper’s editorial ideological leanings.  With the exception of MSNBC and PBS there are really no other comparable analogs in TV mainstream media. 

Then, there are those roundtable political discussions shows like “Meet the Press”, “Face the Nation”. These shows are, for the most part travesties, paying only minimal lip service to pursuit of truth or facts, when comments that are contrary to prevailing known or accepted facts, made by guest (of either ideological perspective) aren’t aggressively scrutinized by their host.  If lies and misinformation facts can be repeated often enough without rebuttal, they become indistinguishable from actual facts to those less inclined to fact check.  That can be a lot of us in our busy schedules.  We depend on, we need a mainstream media that is dedicated to ascertaining, and delivering, the facts.

True democracy can only flourish in an environment of transparency.  That environment can’t exist where its news media, under the banner of “fair and balance news”, issues commentary that an equivalency of tactics or extremes exist at both ends of the ideological spectrums, where none exist.  Transparency in government or proposed governance can only exist in a country where its news media, unencumbered by its owners, pursues the truth.  News, is otherwise just propaganda, however slight or benign its intent.