As much as I am dissatisfied with Obama, I am more dissatisfied with our mainstream news media. We lack a true neutral news source that pursues authentic journalism to hold all sides of the political spectrum accountable.
For television news, we have 5 news networks at varying degrees on the Left, and 1 on the Right. The result is:
- agenda-based journalism
- manufactured outrage
- willful mischaracterizations
- demonization and stereotyping of people via categorical labeling (e.g. rednecks, occupiers, one-percenters) by attributing those labels with derogatory terms (e.g. racist, lazy, greedy)
- constant reinforcing of inaccurate stereotypes
- looking the other way when an elected official who aligns with the news agency's agenda commits an ethics violation, violates the law, etc...
- report news only on one side of a controversy
Here's the big question. If I received funding to start another cable news network and called it NNN (Neutral News Network), and made it my mission to report news in an unbiased fashion, report on both sides of the issues (as opposed to choosing a side and thus misinforming my audience of all of the facts), and avoid using labels outside of accepted labels, would anyone watch my news channel?
I fear I would gain only a small audience because I think that many Americans prefer a news channel that echoes their personal belief system. I think my audience would be even smaller if my news channel started calling out its competitors for factual inaccuracies, ignoring big news stories, and obvious bias.