Media "fairness"

A little over 18 years ago I was at home doing some interior decorating and had the television on. I was watching live as tanks were pumping tear gas into a large compound and starting to knock down the walls when all of a sudden, fires ignited all over the place. Within seconds, the entire place was an inferno. Within minutes, I was absolutely stunned to hear reporters questioning whether the National Guard actions had caused the fire. Anyone with any knowledge of how fires start and spread could see that, with the extensive size of the compound, the conflagration would have needed many starting points and a great deal of accellerant to get going that quickly. Considering how it was clearly impossible or even remotely logical for several beseigers to sneak into the various buildings, plant accellerant, start the fires and sneak out again without being seen by any of the well-armed inhabitants, it made absolutely no sense to even raise the question of whether, accidentally or deliberately, they could have been started by any action other than that of the Branch Davidians. Yet here were reporters suggesting that the fires could easily have been started by carelessness or even deliberate action by the very people who were trying to rescue the children inside.

I was stunned because for the first time in my life, I had actually witnessed the media creating and twisting news rather than honestly reporting it. By raising the question of how the fire had started and presenting the possibility as if it had equal merit with the very obvious truth, the reporters opened the conspiracy floodgates which remain open to this day. It is arguable that their words also paved the path to Oklahoma City and Columbine.

Whether it is Obama's birthplace, evolution, climate change or death panels, the media has become more interested in promoting controversy than in reporting the facts. Statements like "Some scientists believe...", when "some" is the 96% of scientists that are not in the pay of large corporations who stand to benefit from doubt, are not honest and allow people who do not know much or anything about a subject to assume that there is not an overwhelming preponderance of evidence on one side.

It is one thing to see this behavior from professional "opinionists" but something else entirely when delivered by people who hold positions that should be above the fray. More and more of what passes for news is a discussion of what other reporters or news anchors or newspapers or pundits have said. Less and less do we see actual facts about real events.

Ed Murrow, you were so right.