Am I the only one a bit depressed by the unequal coverage afforded to Ron Paul as compared to the other candidates? Ron Paul has a unique message. No one else does. Guess who gets the coverage? And when they bother to cover him look at how he’s portrayed. A joker. A clown. Someone to be mocked, when in reality, he’s the most genuine out of all the candidates, at least as genuine as politicians can be.
The mainstream media has a goal to keep people unaware of their world for the purpose of maintaining the status quo. By covering certain candidates out of two parties while casting any original thinkers (like Ron Paul) to the side, the people who get their news from these sources cannot see the full picture. They obey and vote for who they see promoted.
Their most effective method involves the types of stories they run. When you devote large segments of your shows to discussing the doings of celebrities while people are dying in the Middle East, while oil prices continue to skyrocket and while genocide rampages unchecked in Darfur, you are not telling your audience a damn thing. You are not giving them real news, as real news talks about … brace yourself … stuff that actually matters! Weird, huh?
Late last year, CNN ran an interview with WWE wrestler John Cena, in which he admitted to taking steroids. But wait, an unedited version shows that CNN intentionally edited and distorted his words to promote the myth of rampant steroid abuse. That’s with this story. What about others?
As bad as CNN is, Fox News is by far the worst.
But first let’s mention a few positive aspects about Fox News. For starters, they are fair and balanced. Good. I like news programs that are both fair and balanced. Most are merely fair; the fine folks at Fox have taken the initiative to go above and beyond the call of duty by being balanced as well.
They also report and I decide. Again, another fantastic addition. Such a slogan reminds me, the viewer, that I have the cognitive ability to decide something about their programming. What am I deciding? They don’t specify; it’s up to us. Freedom, beautiful freedom, one of the building blocks of democracy.
And finally, I admire the proclamation that Fox News is America’s most trusted news source. For young men who grew up without a father, the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and our dear closet homosexual friend John Gibson (as Fox News might report it: “Why do you think he has an ‘h’ in his name?”) fill the void and impart life lessons, such as do not question authority, America is the only real country in the world, conservative values rock, the homosexuals have an agenda to corrupt our children, rap music is responsible for all of society’s ills, the French serve the Dark Lord because they had the unnerving gall to follow their own foreign policy with regards to Iraq and any missing white girl is important and a call for alarm, right along with a call to whoever happens to advertise during these highly rated programs.
That’s where the deciding part comes in. They report, and you decide to buy the products advertised. Freedom, beautiful freedom, one of the building blocks of democracy.
Despite all of this, Fox News has a few flaws, and I hope you can forgive me for mentioning them. I do not wish to bash America’s News Network. I merely wish to offer constructive criticism to turn greatness into perfection. So you typical Fox News viewers, please, don’t put down the nachos, stand up from the couch, and start cursing my name.
I’d hate to have you out of breath.
Recently, the Fox News program “Live Desk with Martha MacCullum” dedicated a nearly seven-minute segment to the Xbox 360 video game “Mass Effect,” in which she states that “the game leaves nothing to the imagination” and features “the ability for players to engage in full graphic sex.”
She should have used another disclaimer: “Truth Not Included.”
To give credibility to their lies, they brought on pop psychologist Cooper Lawrence who declared that the game’s main character is a man who decides how many women he wants to be with. Wrong. The player has the option to choose to play as a man or a woman, and any sexual content is not only a small part of the plot, but also far less tame than what you typically see on basic cable. She expressed concern about the danger that this presents to adolescent boys.
It’s rather fitting that the media constantly plays the “children in danger” card because that’s exactly how they treat their audience — as children.
They do not want you to be aware of what’s going on in the world. Their agenda is to maintain the status quo of unawareness which keeps the powerful people in this country powerful.
In the end, the media has no respect for you. You know what they want you to know, and judging from their programming, what they want you to know consists of nothing.
— Travis Lee is a senior in French. He can be reached at [email protected].
