What the recent Presidential campaign has exposed is not only the corruption that runs rampant in American politics but also the corruption that exists and was laid bare during the campaign in what used to be called “journalism” in this country.
In the past, I felt confident that I was hearing and seeing accurate accounts of events and people when I turned on TV programs such as the CBS News with Norah O’Donnell. I must be a late learner because this year my feelings were destroyed. When Norah introduced some news about President Trump, it was always with some snide introductory remark intended to influence the viewers’ feelings about the “news.” We used to be permitted to make up our own minds about events, but now we are told how to react to them.
Corrupt politicians are permitted to sweep their wrongdoings under the rug and even government agencies that sit on information that could result in criminal charges against powerful people are not held accountable for putting those files in limbo.
Perhaps worst of all, the candidates on both sides lie with impunity. Unfortunately, the American electorate rarely recognizes those lies, even when some members of the media expose the truth and produce documentary evidence of the lies. No one cares. Too many people are willing to overlook the lies in hopes of getting to put their hands in a pot of gold when their candidate is elected.
This will be my last tirade for a while about so-called journalists, but I would be remiss if I didn’t include “polls” in my sights. Just like when Hillary was “elected” by the polls when she ran in 2016, the polls preceding the recent election were woefully “fixed” with the expectation that many people want to be able to say that they voted for the winner, so they are influenced in their votes by which candidate the polls indicate are likely to be elected. That is just a blatant attempt to fix elections.
What has America come to when you cannot trust people who are paid huge salaries to keep the public informed yet to use that platform, not to tell the public the truth, but to rig how they feel about an event or a person. This is a very sad situation and makes our young people shy away from professions where the mission is to misinform rather than educate viewers and listeners about the truth.
Beware of the road ahead!