To make a sound decision, you have to know the facts. Whether it’s deciding who to vote for in a nearing election or which companies you should trust with your investments, information — pro and con — is key, and that’s where the media comes in. Whether it’s news of a certain company overcharging customers or and exposé of the wrongdoings of a political candidate, newspapers, radio and television are our primary news sources for this day and age and we should be able to count on them to bring us the truth.
A free and independent media to educate the people about the issues and keep a close eye on the activities of our government is vital to a healthy democracy. Our founding fathers knew that and made freedom of the press a basic right under the constitution they drafted for us. Thomas Jefferson summed up why they thought it so important and fundamental: "The only security of all is in a free press," he wrote. "The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure."
What we are seeing lately in the media would surely shock Jefferson. Corporate ownership of media outlets, and emphasis on sensational stories of murder and celebrity and the rise of the right-wing media outlets posing as "fair and balanced" is shaping public opinion. Budget cuts at newspapers mean there are fewer investigative journalists out there seeking the truth and exposing corruption. And the rise of the Internet has made it quick and easy to spread lies and propaganda. We saw all this happening before our eyes during the Bush administration. Reporters weren’t asking the tough questions and accepted the government’s word as truth, especially in the lead up to the Iraq war. Despite a lot of evidence to the contrary, the media, with few exceptions, still reeling like the rest of America from the September 11 attacks, bought George Bush’s stories of weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s links to Al-Qaeda and the tragic assault on our soil. We are still paying for this failure of our media and will be for years to come. We now also have to wonder if we can trust our mainstream media to separate fact from public relations materials and present all sides or if it is up to us to find alternate sources of news, the whole truth we need "to keep the waters pure."