Recently I was following a thread on another blog when someone posted a link to pictures of Amy Winehouse after her latest reason to go to rehab. Now, I'm not a fan of Winehouse, but following her spiral into oblivion has a certain fascination. Much like the need to slow for a car wreck. The thing that interested me was when someone else asked who Winehouse was. When informed that she was the singer of that "rehab song" that was all over the airwaves, the asker replied "I never listen to commercial radio or TV".
I run across this attitude seemingly more often all the time. I am always amazed when I hear someone call into a talk radio show and say "I don't own a television". And of course the prevalence of the Kill Your Television bumper stickers. Now I certainly don't want to force anyone to listen to or view anything they don't wish to, but I'm at a loss to know how you can even start to gage the mood and the prevailing feelings of the majority of Americans who use the airwaves to gain the bulk of their (admittedly limited) knowledge of the world around them.
I don't want to hear about how the MSM is nothing but crap and you can't use it for real information. The fact is most Americans do. If you don't gain a feel for the dis-information that that they are being fed, then you will be just as misinformed as they, are albeit in a different manner. If you care about what is happening in this country, then you should call bull-shit when you see it and that includes calling the media when they are at their worst. Every single person should write their local paper when they print nonsense and call them on it. Imagine what would happen if thousands and thousands of Americans called NBC or CBS or ABC and said "The occupation of Iraq is the most important story you can report on. Why do you spend 30 seconds a day on it and never have any real reporting of what it's really like on the ground?" That kind of pressure would have real effects on what Joe Six Pack sees every day.
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