The media ARE the Runaway Bride

The Fourth Estate are expected, Constitutionally speaking, to stand with us and keep us informed. Their role is to help us better perfect democracy by looking out for our interests, especially insofar as they are in conflict with special interests. The reason the media are mentioned only tangentially in the Constitution is that Government is to play absolutely no role in its establishment, the better for media to maintain its adversarial relationship and play the part of watchdog with respect to Government.

Unfortunately, someone who wanted to undermine that relationship in order to further their own interests once hatched a sinister idea: let the corporations buy up all the media outlets, then get Government to cozy up to corporate interests. And it's worked like a charm.

Now our betrothed, seduced by that corrupt suitor, has gilted us. The problem is, we still have a deep need for the media, despite its inconstancy. We still hope she will come to her senses and do the right thing, even though she's on the run.

Please come back, Love; you know we need you. Come back and fulfill the responsibility you once committed to. We are inseparable, you know. We can't live up to our full potential without one another, and alone, we shall both fail. Only we two can come together to produce the finest of offspring: democracy. Don't be blinded by flashy things and false promises.

Please come back and be true.

who express themselves better than I can, and you just won a prize in my book! Media bought by rich Repugs=one point of view.
Two or more points of view are mandatory, and it's not happening.

Chris Matthews has a nice fat new estate in Nantucket, and he's going to have to pay for it, and he's not going to pay for it by doing "journalism", whatever that word means these days.

Neither are Brian Williams, Bill O'Reilly, Katie Couric, Joe Scab-burrow or any of the other members of the Whore Brigade. They have their paychecks, they have their limousines, they have their country estates and uptown condos and they are not going to let them go.

Sure, they'll squeak and squeal from time to time about how standards have slipped and how television journalism has gone downhill ever since CBS followed the news of Ed Murrow's death from lung cancer by airing a cigarette commercial.

And in the end, they'll belly up to the bar for another shot of well-heeled whoredom.

I'll say it again - we are on our own. You're not going to get news from American television. Get used to it, get out and get your news from overseas - BBC, AFP, Deutsche Welle, Reuters, Asahi, Guardian/Independent, Moscow Times, Le Monde, Times.

If it's news you're after, it's not going to be airing on your television.

...and she's already borne that lowest of bastard offspring: propaganda.

people and the media, and I must admit the picture can be discouraging.

If you don't believe me, just turn on any network or cable news show in the next 24 hours, and what do you think they're going to be discussing for 20 or 30 or 60 minutes straight?

US fatalities in Iraq and the stunning upsurge in violence in the past week, or the Runaway Bride?

Swelling deficits and toppling trade imbalances or the Michael Jackson trial?

The continued economic pulping of the American middle class or that zany Paris Hilton?

In all three cases my money's on the latter.

But not to worry - Larry King will be interviewing Jennifer Wilbanks' fiance's pool cleaning guy's neighbor, asking "How did it feel to know that you'd been lied to?" Then Nancy Grace can make a special guest appearance and flare her nostrils and demand death by burning at the stake, and we'll know that all's well with the world.

maybe we can find her and get a message to her. We can bring her back to her senses, help her to remember her heart by reminding her of those sweet words we spoke to one another when our love was new, the pillow talk of grand possibilities.

It won't be easy. But these are the times, after all, that try men's souls....

We do not have time for triviality, and now triviality is all there is.

It's inescapable, smeared across the airwaves every hour of every day.

It's like hydrogen - it's everywhere.

Steroid use by professional athletes (WOW! Who knew?!?!?!?)

Jen/Brad/Angelina/Bat Boy/Kevin Costner/Bob Denver/John Denver/Dumbo and whoever else is this week's entrant in the Endless Hollywood Waltz of Celebrity Fuckscandal.

Jacko, Jacko, Jacko. Jacko's hairdresser, Jacko's limousine driver, Jacko's defense team. Jacko's press agent, Jacko's personal trainer, Jacko's animal trainer, Jacko's hyperbaric oxygen tank attendant, Jacko's Personal Toenail Clipping Retrieval Professional.

Our Lady of the Flaring Nostrils and the Abrams Report - hours and hours and hours of people speculating on things which they know neither to be true nor untrue - but doing so in a glib and engaging style so winning that it almost sounds like they're saying something.

The Sunday Clown Squad, eager to remind of a president "resolute", "determined" and "optimistic" performance on prime time TV, despite the fact that the rest of the planet watched a performance reminiscent of an embarassed mandrill unable to figure out how to operate a rope-controlled cage door.

The Weekday Bunco Squad, eager to show us that since the blue line on the chart rose much faster than the red line on that other chart that everything is just hunky dory - these gleaming digital numbers prove it, don't you see - so BUY BUY BUY MORE STOCKS!!!!!!!!!!

And, of course, the Missing Suburban White Woman Report - lest we forget . . .

Now copy what you have right there, and paste it into letters to your local newspapers and TV outlets, National media outlets and their parent corporations, and above all, the sponsors of TV airtime. Not to mention repeating it to friends and sympathetic co-workers.

The buzz has already started. Just speak and you're increasingly likely to be heard.