by Not Here

Created on: November 25, 2008

America has no idea about the cost of ethical journalism. We do however, have a great view of the cost of unethical news coverage. The past presidential election being a prime example, of how one sided 'unbiased' news coverage has become. The 2008 presidential election, while the longest in history fell right in line with recent presidential and almost any other election in this country. News coverage on different networks turned into nothing more then thinly veiled campaign ads for both major candidates. Our society somehow managed to keep from drowning during a campaign that resembled Kevin Costner's "Waterworld", over-budgeted and in need of editing for time constraints.

The cost of such malarkey was nothing short of uneducated voters going to their polling places. Instead of finding out what the candidates actually wanted to do, aside from help their buddies on Wallstreet, we were bombarded by quotes taken out of context and smear campaigns that labeled Obama a 'Muslim terrorist' and McCain a 'hate/war monger'. Aside from the disheartening fact that our general populace is either too stupid, lazy, or blinded by their parties doctrine; we were left once again with choosing between the lesser of two evils. Where was the reporting on the large amounts of special interest and corporate money being poured into both campaigns by the same companies that were bailed out in our recent congressional act.

Both men were media creations as well. McCain almost finished dead last in his class at the Naval Academy and was admitted to flight school? That does not happen unless you have influential family and friends at the top of the food chain. I am not discrediting his service as many have tried, because regardless of how many missions the man flew he was still a POW for years. Such sacrifice for one's country should not be s easily written by bleeding heart liberal reporter's who at most were put in timeout by their parents. Obama being a man of the people? His father has multiple wives, he was raised in paradise and attended expensive institutions well out of the reach of regular people. Compounding the problem of him being a man of the people was the simple fact that he had the largest campaign fund in history. Poor people were not donating millions. McCain a maverick trying to reform Washington? He voted for and took money from the same people Obama did.

Our middle class is going extinct as jobs are outsourced overseas. Less than 10% of our population controls upwards of 90% of the money. Wall Street brokers got rich investing your money in companies, inflating stock prices only to pull themselves out before 401(k)'s went in the tank. They bought plenty of overpriced homes inflating the housing market, only to have the bubble burst. Our politicians then reward them by bailing them out of the financial crisis they created. Where are the protesters in the street demanding accountability? They are sitting at home on the couch being consoled by a cable news provider thinking that these events are ok. They scapegoat the previous administration(who by no means did an exemplary job of anything except limiting our civil rights and deregulating financial industry) instead of reporting that career politicians on both sides of both major parties are the problem. The cost of unethical journalism, like the cost of ethical journalism, is very hard to quantify. However we can see the direct results in our daily lives.

The cost of ethical news coverage is impossible to quantify, but the costs of the unethical coverage that currently exists is easily viewable to anyone with the insight to see through corpratized journalism that we have in our country today.

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