Thank Heaven For Bloggers!

I've been watching the Obamatization of the media with trepidation. Especially now that the administration is trying to marginalize, if not out right eliminate, FOX as a credible source for news.

You see, this is dangerous. We do not want our government controlling what comes out of Washington. It will lead to worse. It is an attempt to control what we think. We see it here in our small town paper where the news, other than the feel good stuff, is controlled by the power brokers. We, too, have blogs. They present all sides of issues with varying degrees of accuracy, but at least they exist. It's left to the reader to sort through them and decide for themselves what is and is not accurate. Those who don't are not well informed.

It has been interesting to watch MSNBC move left to the point one wants to shout "Tilt"! NBC no longer delivers the news. They either promote their own programming or do feel good pieces. How long has it been since any in depth reporting has been done on anything from other parts of the world?

I don't watch ABC nor CBS except on weekends when they have anchors I can tolerate, though the substance is no better. Most news reporting these days is a collection of sound bites. Period. Or Anderson Cooper wondering why they devote so much time to trash news. Well, why do they? Ratings!

Making matters worse is the diminishing newspaper industry. Reporters no longer dig deep for truths. The papers can't afford to pay them for the time it would require. With shrinking staff, they do well to cover what they do. Then there is the number of papers that are just no longer publishing. Advertising revenue which keeps them afloat is down because it's not affordable. Add to that the number of businesses that are closing their doors because they can't advertise! Do you see a direction here? Like a downward spiral?

So here we are. 60,000,000,000 bloggers around the world hammering away at their keyboards citing opinion on everything from gardening to climate control. If you can't find something that interests you, you don't use a computer!

When it comes to news, though, you have to work to find both sides of issues. That's okay. It improves both reading and comprehension skills! There are blogs covering every aspect of the political spectrum from far left, which we're dealing with now, to the far right which is waiting in the wings. Fortunately, there are enough centrists asking questions of both sides to actually give you something to think about.

It's mostly bloggers. In a way it's frightening that it has come to this. I, however, will take a positive view. Rather than dwelling on how news coverage has devolved, I'll look at how blogging is evolving.

It's almost to the point we have an obligation to our fellow citizens to sort through all that is happening. The "official" media isn't doing such a good job any more and the government isn't doing it at all!