What liberal media?

What’s really happening on planet Earth right now? Most of us tune in to the evening news with the intention of getting at least a summary of the most important issues confronting us. I made that mistake a few weeks ago when I tuned in.

My intelligence was insulted from the bombardment of stories such as these: Madonna’s fall from a horse, Dick Clark’s plans for next New Year’s eve, the fact that P. Diddy is officially shortening his name to just plain “Diddy,” a boat made entirely from popsicle sticks, people getting married at fast-food drive-thrus – it sounds like the kind of stuff you’d expect from Entertainment Tonight or David Letterman.

In fact I was watching Fox News at Ten, and this is typical of the sort of nonsense major network news programs are parading as “news” today. How do they justify their status as news programs in an alleged democracy while wasting valuable airtime on such irrelevant and inane drivel while serious issues that affect the lives of Americans go unmentioned and unquestioned?

What of the new energy bill and its impact on the people of this country and the world? Not a word. Eight seconds were spent showing footage of the Israeli pullout of the Gaza Strip, leaving no time for any elucidation on potential impacts to the peace process there, nor the position of the Palestinian Authority, nor questions concerning Israeli policy and activities on the West Bank.

If any of you have heard the disturbing news about the recent Supreme Court ruling that allows local governments to seize private property and hand it over to other private entities if they believe those entities able to generate more local tax revenues – well, you certainly didn’t hear about it on any network news station. They were too busy blathering about the latest shade of lipstick and the length of Britney Spears’ toenails.

Have any of you heard about Bechtel Corporation’s takeover of a Bolivian city’s public water system? Bechtel raised the prices so drastically that most families then had to choose between food and water since paying Bechtel’s prices consumed more than a quarter of the typical family income. Bechtel also successfully lobbied the Bolivian government to pass a law making it illegal for these people even to gather rainwater without paying Bechtel for its use. And now, Bechtel – with the sanction of the World Bank, no less – has intent to do the same to the people of several cities in India.

Disturbing? I’ll say. And what I’ve referenced here doesn’t scratch the surface in terms of the serious stuff going down in the world today. But what’s more disturbing is that network “news” programs in this country aren’t telling us anything.

Is it that their advertisers fear that if we begin a serious dialogue of these issues, people will care less about purchasing their products than solving these problems? Is it that these networks fear they will lose advertising dollars if they dare to expose the irresponsible behavior of their patrons? That’s not how it should work. It is the advertisers and the government who should fear the media, not the other way around.

I and many others want to see all news media networks play the role that the media is supposed to play in helping to maintain a healthy and functional democracy by – on behalf of the American citizens – investigating and holding accountable corporations, government, and any person or legal entity that may wield power without integrity or consideration for the people of this country and the world. They should strive to provide their audiences with a fair representation of the true diversity of perspectives on the full spectrum of important issues currently facing Americans and people of other nations.

I emailed my concerns to Fox News Richmond asking these same questions and citing these complaints. Only one co-anchor replied, saying “this is a democracy and you are free to choose where you get your news.”

What a travesty it is when, in a so-called “free country,” those with the honor and responsibility of enabling healthy democratic processes arrogantly impede them by pandering to the powerful at the expense of the people, affronting those who protest with a smug flippancy that’s equivalent to saying, “well, let them eat cake.”

All those lives given in the name of freedom so that “news” people such as the people at Fox News can tell the world about “Diddy,” get paid good money to do it, and then tell the world that if they don’t like it to find their news elsewhere.

Fox News Richmond – and so many other stations like it – seem content to go on bumping vital stories in favor of those coming directly from Disneyland while men, women and children are dying in Iraq allegedly for the sake of the very freedoms our media no longer cares to exercise.

My suggestion: turn off the television and tune your radios to 97.3 FM. The good folks at WRIR are performing on a shoestring budget, but they are doing a far better job of providing their audience with the type of information that is essential for a true democracy – the type of information people need in order to function as informed citizens of a democratic society. Frankly, they put those slick, multi-million dollar networks to shame.

April Kung may be reached at aprilekung@yahoo.com