The Lowest Common Denominator

Regarding the two hurricanes over the Gulf coast recently, whatever I didn't see directly or experience pesonally I could only imagine. I was forced to rely on the eyes and ears of others to fill in the blanks for me. This simple truth, as I think about it, extends to all of my life experiences; to all of yours as well.

I live between Austin and Houston, and am intimately familiar with the reality on the ground of the evacuation that unfolded through my town and within my commute to and from work in advance of Rita. Since I don't live on the coast, I don't know what it was actually like for them to go through their evacuation experience(s) because I WASN'T THERE. I wasn't in New Orleans...wasn't in Mississippi...wasn't in Alabama for Katrina either.

Sadly, my only means of getting information was and continues to be the media.

This story from the LA Times [thanks to Drudge] tells us that our media may not be doing so well (I know, I'm shocked too), and it got me thinking.

I was fortunate enough to have my thinking interrupted this morning over coffee when I read Leon's "Victory at All Costs" post (excellent job by the way, Leon). He is right of course, and this one sentence from Leon sums up the point I want to make here:

"There is a certain segement of the American population - a segment that sadly determines most elections, that is impressed by victory and successful action, no matter what that action might be."

Leon's apt description can be superimposed over the whole of the American media. While it is popular for the right to cry foul over CBS or CNN, it is just as right for the left to cry foul over Rush or Hannity. It's the game we're in. The crux of the problem is with the beast itself; the nature of the media is to fill in our blanks, and they have done so in a manner that is ruining our basic intelligence. Long lost in our society is good old common sense; it has been replaced with images and sounds and pretty lights and fancy bells and whistles.

I assert here that the media (through our spongy little mush minds) is waging a "War on Intelligence". Vietnam, Watergate, Read My Lips, Monica, Bush Lied; all intended to tear down something or someone rather than just filling in our blanks. The list is shamefully much longer than this, but you get the point. We are losing the war on intelligence, and we have allowed the media to do our thinking for us. Why would anyone be surprised that the national dialog has become beteen us and media outlets instead of between us and our representatives?

The behavior of the media has set the national agenda; has created the list of talking points from our political heroes; has set the standard of acceptable and unacceptable behavior for them. When Senator Landrieu threatened to punch the President because of how poorly he responded to Katrina, the media helped us believe she was justified because they had already told us he had done poorly . Nothing followed in the media to indicate she had been charged with threatening the President of the US (a felony).

I could go on. There's Rather-gate. There's the mourning mom who has become a parody. There's plenty to pick at. If we don't want another Vietnam...if we want our soldiers to finish the job and come home AFTER success, if we want to make our politicians really do what WE want instead of making sure they don't do what the media DOESN'T want, I suggest we address the lowest(pun expressly intended) common denominator; the media.

The victory Leon is describing is going to come at the cost of making the media accountable. It's going to come by we, the consumer, making them accountable. It's going to come when we not only realize what we've done to ourselves, but when we realize we are the only ones that can undo it. Since we can't amend the 1st amendment, how bout we start pulling broadcast licenses for all the media junk that is shrill and untrue? How about we let the private sector, through the advertising business, drop all outlets who engage in the shrill agenda reporting they currently engage in? How about we make them require paid subscriptions (or place them ONLY on pay per view) when they lie or embellish or in any way knowingly mislead? Worth a moment of thought, anyway.