I think that this post at Digby’s is a very important read. And I hope that mainstream media outlets who are still practicing actual journalism take note. 

The American right is at war not just with basic morality and science, but with the very notion of journalism itself. They want a Supreme Court that resides in a bubble without the context of public opinion, and an electorate that gets its information straight from bloviating tinfoil hatters.

At some point the establishment press is going to have to call this out for what it is, even if it means losing the 258of the Diitoheads who have gone far off the deep end. It’s not as if those folks are going to be paying subscribers or revenue generators, anyway.

I’ve thought a great deal about this recently. If news is about money and ratings and eyeballs on a page be it deadwood or online, then I truly believe that we are in trouble. People have to eat, but let’s remember that journalists are being fired quickly and that media corporate offices are making decision where people are going to be left out. And those people I’m talking about are consumers. Policy matters, folks. Yet if you don’t understand the policy because the analysis is sketchy, then folks are going to attach their own meaning and emotional resonance to it.

Communication of facts should be the bottom line, but let me remind you, more people are talking about Anderson Cooper coming out today (which is none of my damned business who he has sex with) than they are about this regarding the individual mandate in the new health care law.

Why this is troubling is simple. It does boggle my mind that it seems okay in this day and age to throw out fiction grenades. The other thing in the Hullabaloo article is that mainstream media is being lessened because  political operatives are going to go to alternatives to control their own message.

It’s the new normal. There is so much information out there that people will bite off what they can handle or that identifies with their belief system. Watergate was complicated yet people understood the enormity of it. These days, we are talking about the sex lives of Cooper and the Kardashians.

I’d like to believe in Bigfoot, campers, but that doesn’t mean there are facts out there to support he/she exists. And the ultimate fail comes down to that the bottom line has become more than actually communicating the facts in news, that watchdog organizations operated by corporate entities are replacing many aspects of investigative journalism and, even sadder, is that when people don’t get the facts, they react to the PR created fantasy.

There are no easy answers to this because apathy can destroy more than any weapon. And it is happening right now.