Getting More Serious: "Free Press," not "Fluff Press"

Thu. Jan. 12, 2012
Today's assignment:
1.  Jan. 11 NYT lead editorial "The Republican Contest,"
2.  Any book review of Lawrence Lessig's booklength study, Republic, Lost,
3.  The upcoming premier TV showing of "Moyers & Company" [for broadcast in your area, go to BillMoyers.com, and type in your zipcode].

My first two posts, over the last two days, were partly for the purpose of teaching an old retiree how to blog.  Their substance was mostly experimental & flip.

Today, time to turn to this blog's longer-term goal:  making serious contributions to what the Founding Fathers really wanted in the 1770's & 1780's -- a genuine & enduring democratic republic.
This means, a government with no monarch run by elected representatives -- "republic" -- of an electorate which becomes increasingly more inclusive toward universal suffrage, or "democratic."
Since 1789, the USA's eligible electorate has evolved way beyond the original adult propertied white males to nearly every citizen over age 18.  And yet, as eligibility has expanded over 222 years, percentage of actual participation has generally declined.

Most Founding Fathers would be sorely disappointed.  By 1776 most Europeans, since roughly Martin Luther's 16th Century, had decided that some form of monarchy was far superior to the regional & tribal chaos of the Middle Ages, and they ridiculed the 1776 Americans' hopes for a democratic republic as unworkable and doomed within a few decades.  Our Founding Fathers felt that an essential ingredient of sustaining such a republic was the constant nurturing of an informed & virtuous citizenry.  Today, on Jan. 12, 2012, apathy, disintegrating families & communities, poor schooling, and especially a failing "free press," line up as the Usual Suspects.  Nothing wrong with "Amazing Race," "American Idol," NFL, Nascar.  But all that is for play time.  We cannot sacrifice civil time, and much of that needs to be invested in paying attention to an informative rather than a fluffy press.

If we had stayed in the British Empire, we'd at least have the BBC & publically broadcast parliamentary debates where a prime minister has to defend her/his policies with a modicum of evidentiary fact.  In contrast, check out our 1/2-hour ABC, CBS, NBC evening news broadcasts every night.  For Jan. 11, all 3 networks were done with "hard news" after 15 minutes; after that, there were items like Jodi Kantor's "expose" of Michelle Obama's supposed hard feelings with her job as First Lady.  During the same hour, PBS was at least trying to inform, by comparing economists' views of what is the best way to reform the USA taxing system.  Google the "Laffer Curve" & Laffer's opponents.
My point is, we shouldn't have to google it, because it should be on the front page of not only the New York Times & Wall Street Journal, and within the first 15 minutes of every TV news show, but in every popular [not just serious] news source.  A free press not only can teach -- it must.
What IS a "private equity firm"?  Only the 1% know, but it is a free press's job for all of us to know, so that we can judge whether attacks on Mitt Romney's work at Bain Capital are fair or not.  Instead, we get the "pious baloney" labeled by Newt Gingrich from ALL Democratic & Republican politicians, including him.  Radio & TV in the USA encourage pious baloney.  Already, the USA is listing dangerously toward an oligarchy of the 1%.  Is there any federally elected official who is not in some contributor's pocket?
Not what the Founding Fathers had in mind.  To borrow Lawrence Lessig's phrase, the Republic will be lost, if the free press does not do its job, and fast.