A poll just out from Gallop indicates that 60% of Americans don't trust the mass media. I'm surprised that number isn't even higher. The mass media these days is a corporate enterprise, and what they do for the most part is shill for corporate and big money interests.
Newspapers, the kind that are printed and distributed on paper, are dying. One reason is that the internet has become a very efficient way of delivering news and information. Moreover, there are many outlets on the internet to chose from, including some that are worthy of one's trust. The internet is not the only reason for the demise of newspapers. They also suffer because they have lost the public trust, in large part because they see advertisers as their customers, rather than their subscribers.
Television is a media that could be used to enlighten, inform, and inspire. Instead, TV news is shaped to fit a pro-corporate agenda. The most egregious example is Fox News, but to some degree all of the networks obfuscate, mislead, or filter out stories don't fit their narrow world view.
These days, network primetime TV is mostly a line-up of cop shows, sitcoms, and mind numbing reality programming like American Idol and Dancing with the Stars. All of it is designed to anesthetize audiences while plying their minds with an endless litany of 'buy me now' product commercials.
PBS is the only place one can still find TV programming that is honest and genuinely informative. Wait. I take that back. Corporations sponsor most of the programming on PBS.
It's a tragedy that our mass media cannot be trusted. But that's life in the 21st century.
The internet is the only place one can find news outlets that report the day's events objectively, without bias. It's pretty much the only place were one can find articles and opinion writing that doesn't parrot the worldview of big corporations and the wealthiest one percent. A free and open internet will continue as long as we as citizens place appropriately high value on net neutrality. It should be no surprise that open access and the free flow of information on the internet is under heavy assault by big telecom and cable servers who want to exercise ever more control over access to the net and the content available on it. The usual suspects are hard at work lobbying in the halls of congress for laws that will kill net neutrality. Every citizen has a stake in this fight. Every citizen should fiercely resist efforts to put the corporate clamp on the internet. Free access and the free flow of information on line is the only thing standing between the common person and the kind of Orwellian world no freedom loving person would wish for. This is not a left vs. right issue. Maintaining a free and open internet is something both progressives and 'tea party' conservatives should advocate.
Here is a link to an organization that is singularly focused on protecting out internet freedoms. http://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality-101
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