In a presidential election, the media holds our “ability to choose” hostage by their lack of even coverage to all candidates. In the 2008 election many candidates were pushed aside or outright ignored by the media. In one instance, the media did not include an active presidential candidate in an official presidential debate. In fact, I would go further to say that the media holds hostage our ability to make informed decisions by inundating the public with poorly sourced and often times misleading information. News is a word that is tossed around frequently in this new media age. With the advent and popularity of the Internet, news is everywhere. Broadcast news has been a part of the profit sector for some time now. As a result we have seen a steady decline in the quality of news. The purpose of “News” has changed drastically. Coverage of daily and world events now includes cliffhangers and bold text meant to entertain the public. News no longer informs the public.

The river of misinformation that educates the public, cleverly disguised as news, fosters division amongst the people of this nation causing the American audience to believe they are on separate sides of issues already proven to be common ground, thus pushing many Americans toward voting against their own best interests. Overt bias has all but ended our expectations for an objective press. The standards that governed the ownership of media have weakened and information monopolies are beginning to bud. The corporations who own media are more aggressive than ever. The FCC seems to look the other way, so long as nudity or foul language aren’t involved. The culture of media has relinquished the high road. In the last six years, news scandals have included Brit Hume and Armstrong Williams who were caught passing government paid propaganda as bona fide news. The government paid high-ranking retired military officials as well, to offer positive press for the endeavors of war. The media accepted this information without question. It is still illegal to use government propaganda against the American public. Employees of FOX News sued FOX for requiring them to cover news they knew to be false. Our very own courts condoned the lies because FOX is a for profit company and these press members were it’s employees. Jeff Gannon, a male prostitute with no journalism credentials or experience, was mysteriously granted a much-coveted seat in the White House Press Core. As a whole, the media chose not to uphold their responsibilities to the people in the lead-up to the Iraq Liberation/Occupation/War and by doing so allowed and encouraged our government to run head first in to two wars. One, of which, was unprovoked against a country that posed no valid threat to our nation. Too many questions were not asked. Too few facts were verified. The “fourth house of the government” no longer holds the government accountable for it’s indiscretions.

Much like the FCC, it is more likely that the press will pay attention if there is nudity or betrayal involved. The failures of the pharmaceutical companies, the EPA, the FDA, and Congress do not interest the corporate media. As a result, we are less safe as a country. The world has been busy. Americans have been preoccupied. The majority of the public hasn’t even noticed that news no longer offers truth. Most Americans don’t have time to fact check. Instead they believe what they hear. They assume that the media has their best interest at heart. In the past, this might have been true. The media has always been a primary component of the checks and balances that the founding fathers intended when they insured the right to a free press and the right to free speech. Now that the media rests in the profit sector, too much time has passed unnoticed and unchecked. The press is no longer free—in the grand American spirit of the word. We are inundated by entertainment. Our deepest need is not entertainment. We need to be informed. The time has come. We need a press that cares for the people it was hired to inform. We need a press that is noble and unflinching in its pursuit of truth.

• Truth Standards: the FCC should issue New Network Licenses. These licenses should delineate the lines between entertainment, opinion, and News. Once in place, these standards should be reviewed as strictly and as passionately as the separation of Church and State.

News credentials should be awarded to establishments that can stand behind the facts in their articles or broadcasts

Opinion credentials should be awarded to news sources that are biased in their coverage but still adhere to fact checking standards

Entertainment Credentials should be awarded to those establishments whose content is not dependent on fact for it’s effectiveness.

• Address Media Consolidation: As there are fewer owners distributing information to the masses there is, and will be, less diversity in the information that is distributed. “Freedom of the press” was originally instituted with the direct purpose of protecting the people from the “powers that be” by giving voice to their grievances and triumphs. Support “Freedom of the Press” by controlling the rapid consolidation of media that threatens the education and evolution of the American people.

• Enforce “Freedom of the press”: I am disheartened by the recent evolution of the American free press. If our Democracy can no longer point to our free press as a symbol of what freedom can offer, then we have failed.

• News for profit: News as a part of the profit sector is, in my opinion, a disaster. For quest of knowledge we view our nightly news. Instead of knowledge we find fear, disinformation, propaganda, and catchy graphics. Facts are rarely checked and bias is evident. This is not news. This is entertainment. It seems the news has been cancelled. It is in the interest of Democracy to return “news” to its original values when media fought to inform rather than distract the public.

• The ban, which outlaws photographs of war coffins, must end. The National Security Archive offers this historical account “The ban on media coverage of returning casualties was imposed by Defense Secretary Cheney after an embarrassing incident in which three television networks broadcast live, split-screen images in December, 1989, as the first U.S. casualties were returning from an American assault on Panama. In that incident, President Bush was seen on television joking at a White House news conference while somber images of flag-draped coffins arriving at Dover Air Force Base moved across viewers’ screens. The ban on war casualty images was continued during the Clinton administration, which made several exceptions to allow publication and broadcast upon the return of victims of attacks against U.S. personnel abroad, including the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000. President George W. Bush continued the ban following the start of the Afghanistan war in October 2001 and the Iraq invasion in March 2003. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Henry Shelton, coined the phrase “the Dover Test” to describe the impact of images of flag-draped coffins returning from a battlefield to the military mortuary at Dover, potentially affecting public support for a war.” There must be a public apology to the families, the American people, and to the press. We cannot understand the reality of war if we cannot see its effects.

• C-span viewers should be allowed to view the entire chamber so that roll call is visually apparent and so that speeches carry their appropriate context. According to the Washington Times, shortly before Christmas of 2006 Congress rejected “C-Span’s request to use its own cameras and operators to televise House proceedings.’ As a result “C-SPAN viewers will continue to be shortchanged. Their view of Democracy in action inside the People’s House would remain strictly confined to the podium.” The people could use a little “electronic sunshine” in these dark times. I think it’s the least you can do.