[Editor’s Note: It’s not footballs that are deflated, notes Michael Brenner. It’s our news, which is deliberately deflated and distorted so as to not disturb the ruling elites. Brenner offers some compelling examples and issues calls for meaningful reforms. His article makes for invigorating reading over this Labor Day Weekend.]

An informed public is the bedrock of American democracy. That belief has been a central pillar in the national creed since it was eloquently stated by Thomas Jefferson. A free press is the prime and prized instrument for ensuring it. Today, at the height of the communications revolution, keeping the public informed should be easy as pie. That is not the case, though, as we know from surveys and our own anecdotal experience. Citizens are probably less aware of what is going on around them on matters of politics and policy than at any time since universal literacy became a reality.

Why this incongruity? It stems in part from the habits and inclinations of a populace that is self-absorbed to the point of functional autism. It also due to the abject failure of the mainstream media (MSM) to uncover and present the news in ways that extend and deepen people’s understanding of what is happening. Driven by short-term profit, skewed by the interests of those who own them, the media habitually pander to the least common denominator of readers’ and viewers’ taste. The news business has devolved into just another branch of the entertainment business.