CURRENT MEDIA'S LACK OF RELEVANCE

A problem with the current media today is that they are asking the wrong people the right questions. Rather than hunt down concrete facts and news, they are asking the untrained, lay people (such as most of the Congress, the man on the street, the hastily put together 'panels of experts'.) It is understandable that the habit may have started with the last, very secretive eight years of governmental functioning. With no accountability and the refusal of people in the Administration to come before the Legislature and reveal what it was they were doing and to what end, it would seem logical that the media went into 'punt' mode. Ignoring the Constitutional need for the three branches to work together, the media raised occasional weak alarms for the public about this. These alarms were quickly disqualified by other media megaliths. However, the Obama administration has transparency...shouldn't the media realize this and actually start doing their job instead of pretending they are Administrative advisers?

Katty Kay, English reporter and journalist brought up an interesting point on this week's Meet the Press. She pointed out that European countries are not as panicked to make stimulus packages because, even if people are out of work, they still have medical care and anticipate future survival better than Americans are able by current circumstances.

Among much of the useless information coming out of the media today, is amazingly how much waste of time there is by the apologists, especially the Republicans. Meet the Press had Congressman Kantor on, as he has been seen frequently on other 'shows' a well, full of promises about plans the Republicans are working on and will soon put work him to the front. Rather than the handsome face and articulate speech he puts forth, I would rather hear someone with substance. He whined about the difficulty it is to be the minority party (missing that the Democrats...party of ideas...have been in that position for the past, precious 12 years.)If the media would try to be less politically correct and more interested in actual useful information, it would stop pandering to partisanship as it is currently doing.

Stephanopoulos was first to catch onto the comedians like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel and others, who zero in on issues far better than the 'supposed, straight' media. Perhaps that suggests a sense of humor is needed to see beyond the political pap being currently filling the radio waves and TV screens.

Lastly, the media thinks that a bonus is expendable but fails to realize that for many, it is the actual salary. For example, some employees of AIG have not been given a raise in salary for the length of employment even as long as 15 years. Instead, 90% of their salary is paid once a year in the form of a bonus. If that is taken away, they would have to leave the company. For employees who have been there for any significant length of time their expertise would be difficult to replace. It is now time for the average pub;ic to go back to trying to survive and let the govrtnmrny govern, while telling us how it is doing it. That is the transparency we have yearned for these past eight years.