The media and politics

Words are frequently spoken that we wish we could pull back. They come back to haunt us. All we can do is apologize and keep going forward. Sometimes we speak out of ignorance and sometimes we just get our words crossed up. Politicians have to be very careful that they don’t do the first and when they do the second they are crucified by the press.

So far in my blog I’ve talked about the poor choices of politicians. As I’ve stopped to ponder the poor choices we have in the election pool this year, I believe that anyone with integrity would absolutely refuse to run for public office. The media creates images of people by playing and replaying mistakes and goofs as if the person running for an office is an imbecile. The media has a lot to answer for in the failure of our political system.

With great efforts the media idealizes or demonizes candidates and potential candidates. Every misdeed going back to birth is exposed. Family issues which are best left private are revealed and speculated about. Who in their right mind would run for office and face the sensational media circus that follows candidates.

I respect the media and believe that they should report events and news accurately. Their job is to keep us informed. They should continue to do so but they should stop all this speculation, sensationalism and replaying of unimportant stuff. Their job is not to make the news, only to report it.