DangerousTalk

During the Bush years, it became painfully obvious that our modern media had lost it’s collective balls. The days of Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, Bob Woodward, and Carl Bernstein are long over.

Recently there has been some election fraud in Iran followed by massive protests and possibly a revolution (only time will tell). The current Iranian government has restricted western journalists from the country so the only news seems to be coming from Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace… and the BBC. Wait a minute, the BBC are western journalists, aren’t they? CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, and all the other American news stations and shows reported that they weren’t allowed to report.

CNN’s Roland Martin and I even got into it on Twitter. He assured me that “journalists are not allowed to report on the protests,” and “we only know what’s going on there because of Twitter!”

Journalism isn’t what it once was. What if Nixon told Woodward and Bernstein that they couldn’t report on Watergate and they said, “Oh well,” and went home? The network did tell Murrow that he couldn’t keep challenging Senator McCarthy, but he didn’t care. He did his job because that is what a journalist does. Real journalists take the risks and find ways of getting the story told. They don’t sit at their computers waiting for Twitter to give them the news so they can regurgitate it to the public.

Americans can learn something from what is going on in Iran too. We have gotten lazy. In 2000 when there was massive voter fraud and the Supreme Court had to pick our President (adding that this case could not be used as legal precedent in the future), what did Americans do? Nothing! We sat at home and let Bush destroy our country for eight years.

Maybe we need to get some fire back in our bellies. Maybe we should have taken to the streets and the rooftops. Maybe America needs a good revolution or at least the threat of one. A good start in reasserting our control might be to get to know your congress person. Don’t just call or e-mail, or Tweet, but make an appointment and go down to their office and let them know what is on your mind. Get them to know you and build a voice in your community. Use Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube to help gain support in your local area so you can put some real pressure on our elected officials.

Filed under: Current Events, free speech, Politics