Wingnuts, entertainment, and the media

Common Sense wonders, when did wingnuts become news worthy?  Does it make sense to give someone engaged in outrageous behavior designed to inflame a national platform?  Does someone spouting pure fabrication and outright lies warrant a 2 minute segment on every national news network?  Why does the media focus on the wingnuts?  Why doesn't the media focus on providing factual information about serious issues?  When did clearly partisan rants become an acceptable substitute for informed debate on national TV?  Is entertainment an acceptable substitute for news?

Common Sense is increasingly troubled by the "dumbing down" and ratings based entertainment value of what passes for news in contemporary news.  Indeed Common Sense thinks that the national media bears considerable responsibility for the hyper partisan show that passes for civil discourse on the national news.  Common Sense notes that The Donald spouting complete fabrication is entertaining but is it news?  Likewise, Glen Beck's bizarre rants and Sarah Palin's concoctions.  By giving a platform to wingnuts on the left and right big media makes itself clearly part of the problem.


While political distortion is expected, it is after all politics, how does purveying distortion substitute for providing factual information about serious public issues?  When we as a nation face serious issues such as health care or deficits is it OK for our national media to simply spout some interest party line an not actually provide a factual examination of the issues.  Why  isn't there serious coverage of tax breaks to big oil?  Is it enough to simply announce that big oil gets $4B yearly in tax breaks and not explain what those tax breaks are?  Is it OK to feature an industry representative spouting the party line about gas prices and not present the results of the CBO study about the $0.03 per gallon cost difference?   Common Sense thinks not.

The media has become fascinated with polls.  Often these are of rather doubtful or even no public value.  Consider some recent offerings from the CNN Cafferty file.  "Bigger issue for you if the election ere today: gas prices of Middle East?"  Are those my only choices?  When the respondents are entirely self selected is there any reason to think the results are meaningful in any way?  Or consider Common Sense's personal recent favorite:  "Is Donald Trump playing us for suckers?"  Yes or no.  How about this as a common sense answer, Donald Trump is playing CNN and the Cafferty file for a sucker who is in turn playing the American public for dumb suckers!  Common Sense thinks that such polls aren't simply useless and not news, such polls dumb down the public debate by substituting entertainment for fact.

Common Sense thinks that entertainment is no substitute for news.  Common Sense thinks that media in a free democratic society has an obligation to provide real factual information not ratings based entertainment.