When people think about the constitution, more often than not, they think it grants us rights far and beyond what is intended. In fact, most people live under the misconception that it grants us rights at all, especially the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievancesIf you read the text carefully while it does establish the rights of the people it is mostly aimed at preventing government from encroaching upon those freedoms. These are not rights we need permission for, they are our "natural rights" and thus the constitution aims to protect us from a tyrannical, oppressive government. Therein lies the difference.
But part of the bigger picture here is that we often forget that when the constitution was ratified the world, and in particular the country, was in a far different place than it is now. Here I want to focus on the particular portion of the First Amendment: Freedom of the press.
With the birth of the internet, the expansion of cable/satellite TV and overall communication having grown exponentially on a global scale, there has been an explosion of information and more importantly misinformation. One of the biggest culprits in terms of stories/information by recognizable media is wire-media outlets that provide very fast stories/details to major outlets - The Associated Press (AP) being one of the most distinguishable wire media- more often than not the information provided is foggy or in some ways rationalized without knowing all of the facts.
There are countless instances where a story will be reported somewhere via the AP and the details aren't exactly clear and it's because everyone is in such a rush to get the story out, get readers/viewers and to beat out the competition, even if it's at risk of providing misinformation in any way. To give an all-too familiar example to many of you, think about the proceeding days after September 11th 2001 not to mention the day of amidst all of the hysteria and horror. Every single channel was running the story around the country that had a newsroom to report from and as the hours passed, the buildings fell, the rubble smoldered in the streets, news stations around the country -locally and nationally- reported numbers of the death toll. Based on recollection alone (keep in mind this was my birthday and thus even more memorable) I remember hearing numbers as high as 7,000 presumed dead.
Now this is not to account for the fact that lines of communication had both been destroyed and jammed with the events that transpired that day, so many people were unaccounted for (as evidenced by the shockingly high amounts of "Have you seen this person?" pictures posted around the area and city thereafter) but as the dust settled, the fires were put out or burned themselves out, people made their way home or contacted loved ones, the numbers really didn't drop significantly. The media continued to run with unconfirmed and assumed numbers and reported it over and over and over again until finally there was a somewhat exact number of dead. That number: 2,998.
Yes that is still a lot, too many in fact, but the fact remains that for days all anyone cared to watch and know was about that day above anything else and every day while people read the newspapers and watched the news endlessly hoping to hear of survivors or anything at all were fed massively bloated numbers of dead. I have very little doubt that 9 out of 10 people, when asked an approximation of the number of dead on that day, would give you a number far greater than 2,998.
It is this, that I point out, where the free press has failed us, in that the competition with one another transcends the desire to be fully-accurate, but to break the story and save face by using lines like "From what we are told..." and "More details to come as soon as we have them."
Consider this: A person watching some kind of breaking story gets these vague and often inaccurate details, but doesn't stay tuned. He or she took a lunch break at home, caught the news, and returns to their office of say 50 people with just this information and no ability to find out otherwise until the end of the day (I realize it's not entirely realistic, it's to make a point). So this individual returns to work and tells a few co-workers, who then venture off and tell more co-workers and as it goes the details get diluted naturally by human exaggeration and suddenly you have 50 or so people who have the story almost entirely wrong or not completely accurate.
This, of course, not even taking into account the fact that word could spread from this office to other people as well. So in this very particular theoretical situation you truly have the competitive side of the media failing us and this is not at all an uncommon occurrence. Of those 50 people how many are truly likely to follow up on the story? I'd say maybe less than half depending on the field of work.
The bottom line is not everyone wants to read or watch the news and there are plenty of people that are so hypersensitive to it they don't want to know anything at all. Not to mention that some people plain don't care or are 'too busy' to bother. Then there is another part of the population that says "I trust (so and so)" and just leave the story at that or wait for another update from this individual.
Now that's one example, but furthermore there are the worst overall offenders of any media: Cable outlets. Why are they the worst? Because most of them are 24 hours and need to fill 24 hours of air-time with something. So what do they do? Not only do they fill the air with misinformation but they bring in so-called "experts" to both comment and speculate and convolute the story even further.
For instance, during the Beltway sniper attacks the media was running wild with possibilities: terrorists, psycho serial killers, etc. Almost every network was running endless hours of stories and press conferences about the killings which had very little details. They bring on "experts" and "profilers" to try and rationalize it all for people and most of the profiles determine it's a white male. Well, we all know how that turned out.
But here people are in a region of the country in fear of being randomly shot by some lunatic white guy, questioning everyone that fits the profile that they see and it's all wrong. But the media reported it, hours on end, until it all came to a conclusion and the real details mostly defied a large portion of unofficial information they reported.
I picked this particular case however because the media did, in a way, lead to the two men being caught. Thanks to the rabid competition amongst the media and probably a few hundred bucks cash, the media managed to obtain non-public investigative information and of course reported it immediately. In this case it was the particular model vehicle and state license plates believed to be the shooters car. In this case it worked wonderfully, as someone having heard it recognized the car parked, informed authorities and both men were found and detained for the crimes.
But you have to ask yourself, what if they were more capable and more on top of the investigation through the media? What if they heard the report about their vehicle, cleaned it of finger-prints and traceable evidence and moved on to another car or simply disappeared until they could re-establish their reign of terror? Fortunately in this case these two were mostly unorganized and really just randomly taking out their angst on whoever, wherever. But two more cunning individuals easily could have used this information to elude police and capture, especially with the false information provided by the media classifying the probable suspect(s) as white.
They compromised the investigation to get the story, to be the first to report it, because it gets viewers it keeps people tuned in and ultimately that leads to money and lots of it. Think about the underlying reality here, had these two been in touch, there is a possibility they may still be at-large. The media, in effect, compromised the safety of people just to report what was unquestionably leaked information because they wanted to be the first, to have exclusive information and to get people to pay attention to them.
I don't recall exactly who put it out first, but I believe it spawned from CNN. Take that with a grain of salt though.
So what is important to the media as a whole or the individual reporter who is digging for this information? Is it getting the truth? Is it about informing the people in general? Or is it about the money and possibly notoriety that comes with it? More importantly, is getting this information worth compromising the process of justice when clearly the police did not want this information to be public? This situation does work both ways; it can be beneficial as it was and it can also be the worst possible thing that could be done because it gives too much information to the people who are being sought if they're paying attention.
It seems to me at least that while a free press is important and crucial to a free society, it should not have ulterior motives either. I don't necessarily have a solution to this problem because it is so complex, but you have to ask yourself at what point do we draw the line and what is beneficial about having a competing press with the desire of revenue and profit?
As another alternative think about the ways in which these mass media outlets treat politics. Almost every one of them as a clear and evident partisan approach, an affiliation and a demographic (or ideology) to appeal to. The reports are often skewed to one side or the other, and more importantly they almost never ask the tough questions to politicians. Part of the free press is also part of accountability of government, of asking them why and how, putting them in a position to answer the hard questions. But instead we have a society where the mostly peaceful protests turn into arrests, where civil disobedience is still met with the proverbial fire-hose of the civil rights era and those who oppose are scrutinized or overly-glorified.
Lets be honest, most people know the "Don't taze me bro!" kid.
Look at that situation, despite his sort of ridiculous questioning he was still entitled to ask Mr. Kerry these questions, he used his freedom of speech which he is entitled to as a citizen and student and what happens? Yes he was being pointed and a bit condescending but he was within his rights and he's then removed. Mr. Kerry makes some limited efforts to prevent it from happening but otherwise simply stands there and does nothing. He is the man these security guards are, in a way, protecting right? So why can't he step down and intercede instead of standing there making clearly fruitless attempts? Was he scared? Isn't he the same guy that used his war record as part of his political platform?
This situation is completely indicative of the way the media also treats politicians. The people with real questions get pushed away or ignored while the rest just fall in line and kiss ass so they can get some bits and pieces later on down the line to make a story. The structure is all wrong and it's disgusting. Who knows what, if anything, could be done to make it better. But to me, our free media has failed us and has been ultimately corrupted by the almighty dollar instead of being the truly important part of society that it ought to be.
I may attack some other forms of media at a later point, but for now that is all. I understand the alternative perspectives but I am here merely representing one. Think about it.
