genisis

i've come to the opinion that having media taking part in a capitalist form of competition is bad for society.

having news programs and news channels competing for viewers and the subsequent advertising revenue, i think, leads to problems with the news.

for one, it becomes sensationalist. each story is overblown and drawn out to get as many viewers as possible to pay attention to the talki--screaming--heads that are blabbering about whatever. i point to the terri schiavo and recent cheney hunting stories as examples.

second, it leads to crap fluff pieces that don't count (in my opinion) as real news. like this piece i saw on this 33 lb cat in china. who gives a shit?

third, i think it leads to a corruption of the validity of the news. the ny times with jason blair and the dan rather debacle.

my solution? a radical leftist reworking of the news media.

establish a nonpartisan, independent news agency. one whose budget is established independent of who controls congress. a portion of network, cable, internet and radio revenues and maybe a federal tax on those services will provide the budget for said news agency.

also, we would abolish cnn, fox news, msnbc, cnbc, etc. they would be replaced with a national news channel, international news channel, economic news channel. it would be like cspan with more graphics and cute anchors.

we would get rid of the ridiculous local news shows that have tons of problems of their own, and they would be replaced with a half hour/hour of the national news channels local bereaus.

while this may piss of rupert murdoch and ted turner, i think it is important to remove the for-profit status of the news media.

it should lead to higher quality news with less fluff.
and it should remove the bias that is so prevalent in today's media (both left and right).

add this to things to stump on in the reger2016 campaign.