There was an interesting piece not long ago how our society was losing trust - trust in what you ask? Well, trust in everything; religion, government, education, corporations, money, future economy, Internet, and news media. No, you probably aren't surprised, but I'd like to take this topic a bit deeper, and focus on only one point of contention, the global media, that's right; our news. Okay so, let's talk shall we?
The Columbia Business Journal had an interesting story recently published on April 23, 2012 titled; "Loneliness at the Foreign 'Bureau', News organizations exaggerate the size of their overseas newsrooms," by Justin D. Martin. The article stated for example that;
"The Washington Post has 16 foreign "bureaus" and 12 of them consist of just a single reporter, according to the newspaper's website. The four remaining bureaus all consist of two journalists. Is the Post using the word bureau a bit loosely? One Post reporter, Sudarsan Raghavan in Nairobi, is listed as the paper's "bureau chief in Africa." Raghavan is the chief of a bureau of one in Kenya - for the continent of Africa."
This revelation perhaps is not too surprising due to the massive cuts in the sector, however, if we can't trust the global media in this way then we cannot trust anything at all in the pages of these papers or online. Further, a single reporter/photographer/interviewer/writer/editor/scheduler/you name it, simply isn't sufficient to cover the main events in news in any town over 300,000 much less a large city of a million plus or 10 million, heck you can't even get across town in a half a day. There isn't enough time to verify either. It's a total misrepresentation.
Without trust in the media whether it be online media, TV, radio, or print media then all the news is in doubt. If information is universal and free, but it is also bogus in every regard, then people cannot use it to make valid decisions in the world, therefore, they'd be better off without it, and then well, we are back to square one, and freedom of the press hardly matters, because what they are doing with it isn't keeping us free, or news to begin with.
As the coordinator for a think tank which happens to operate online, I feel as if we've been hijacked by nonsensical mindless social media, global propaganda, educational brainwashing, and thus, we've lost control, there is no trust anymore. This can only lead to chaos down the road, and I am not talking about the Arab Perennial demonstrations, I am talking about the entire globe. This isn't working. Indeed, this one minor issue of "bureaus" cited by the purveyors of global media is only one of hundreds of problems we have, it's merely the tip of the ice berg. Please consider all this and think on it.
Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Political Concepts. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net/
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