Is Anyone Listening?

Looking back over stats for the State of the Union, I notice the number of viewers was at its lowest in 14 years. I wonder if the president wishes it was more? I wonder if he would prefer it to be less? I probably should comment on the content of the speech, but I didn’t watch it either.

I understand President Obama was just interviewed by Bill O’Reilly. Reading a few reports about the interview I understand the president said the different scandals in his administrations existed only because they were promoted by Fox News. I would give you a direct quote, but I didn’t watch this event either.

The president and the liberal media have been surprisingly successful at marginalizing conservative media like Fox News. The liberal media never realizes it does matter what happened at the IRS, Benghazi, healthcare.gov et. al. The end result is he has become unaccountable to the press. Their normal job of accountability through the public spotlight is lost because he can dismiss any media which points to his faults as lies.

The end result of constantly hearing one is being lied to, is to quit listening. The American public has quit listening. They no longer listen to either the conservative press, nor the president, nor the liberal press. But the strength of the American system is the involvement of the people. America’s greatest weakness is the public having been beaten into complacency by the constant barrage of divisive rhetoric.

Again I wonder sometimes, does the president want us paying attention, lauding him for his position and achievements?  Or does he prefer us to be not paying attention to the details of what he is doing?

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The Free Press

We live in a changed economy.

Not necessarily a good economy, but most certainly a different economy.

In our new economy companies have to behave differently in order to make a profit. For fast food places this might mean making everyone, including management, part time. For manufacturing facilities it might mean moving jobs to a country with less regulation and cheaper workforce. For media outlets it might mean eliminated investigative reporting, greater reliance on the wire for news, and a reluctance to risk telling unpopular stories.

We will miss the jobs. We will the made in America label. But what I expect will be even more disastrous is the lack of information and accountability the free press use to provide.

Instead we get whatever story is contrived at the top levels of the media carried down to all other media outlets. It doesn’t pay for the local outlets to determine if it’s true or false. They just need to be able to print something and stay in business. In the process they become enslaved to the popular story, without any time or money to check the facts.

It’s a function of the failing economy keeping the fifth estate from acting as a free press.

But the absence of a free press gives unrestrained control to policy makers who are destroying our economy, freedoms, and ultimately our country.