there is a growing absence of what would historically best be called journalistic skepticism...this is difficult to quantify if only because my concern is of a lack of the characteristic. but where we used to see or hear words such as allege, speculate or accuse (or some derivative thereof) we are now simply told that such things are the truth. 'american officials' or 'top government authorities' are increasingly taken at face value and relied on for information. there seems to be very little deep digging and a general neglect for any investigative study. the media increasingly seem content to merely transmit the information given to them.
this may seem like a subtle change. but i believe this is indicative of a much larger trend. american media outlets, especially, are increasingly moving toward an almost celebratory atmosphere of the bush administrations simultaneous wars on terror and impending war on iraq. the two conflicts have particular characters, both good and bad. at times, the administration has attempted to draw links between the two.
this is a disturbing trend for America. while the events of september 11th, 2001 were a signal that changes in the united states were necessary, these are alterations which must not be pursued unchecked by the representative media. if anything, the media was placed in a position which demanded even greater performance as the American people were now obviously vulnerable to both terrorist attacks and their perhaps overly protective government. i say ?perhaps? because this is based on my own experience...im in canada so i dont get all of the cable channels, just most of them. i read the seminal papers on a weekly basis.
but all im finding is 75 second ?news alerts? about snow storms sandwiched between experts discussing michael jacksons face and donald rumsfeld.
any comments?
this may seem like a subtle change. but i believe this is indicative of a much larger trend. american media outlets, especially, are increasingly moving toward an almost celebratory atmosphere of the bush administrations simultaneous wars on terror and impending war on iraq. the two conflicts have particular characters, both good and bad. at times, the administration has attempted to draw links between the two.
this is a disturbing trend for America. while the events of september 11th, 2001 were a signal that changes in the united states were necessary, these are alterations which must not be pursued unchecked by the representative media. if anything, the media was placed in a position which demanded even greater performance as the American people were now obviously vulnerable to both terrorist attacks and their perhaps overly protective government. i say ?perhaps? because this is based on my own experience...im in canada so i dont get all of the cable channels, just most of them. i read the seminal papers on a weekly basis.
but all im finding is 75 second ?news alerts? about snow storms sandwiched between experts discussing michael jacksons face and donald rumsfeld.
any comments?
