I have come to understand something important: the news media is nothing more than a tool. All too often in this country -- and in the world -- we confuse it in this with some grand ideal of a Free Press. We fail to see it for what it really is: a group of regular people doing a regular job with all of the regular shortcomings typical of our imperfect species.
I have had this inclination for years. First, it came from growing up as a traditional New England conservative and from the distrust of the "liberal media" that is part of the starter kit. Then, it came from instances of my own personal realization that each news outlet, with few exceptions, was by and large unable to be trusted because they all -- understandably -- have an agenda. I could never bring myself to take Fox News seriously; Lou Dobbs and other CNN anchors made me seethe with anger and want to pitch the television set out the window. Soon after reading the New York Times' editorial page religiously for part of my freshman year, I became so disgusted that I swore to myself I would never read their paper again if I could at all help it -- I have so far lived up to that promise quite well.
Nevertheless, I remained sympathetic to the media. The job they do is a necessary one. Our framers were quite wise to include the media among our other sacred liberties in the first several amendments. Throughout the world, and especially here domestically, free press contributes to keeping governments in check. Even if I did not like much of what they did, the service they provided was a blessing to us all, and I still held respect for the sacredness of their duty.
Slowly, however, that respect began to fade. I cannot cite every example, but I know what was the final nail in the coffin: a White House press briefing following Vice President Cheney's hunting accident about a week ago. I read the news stories about his accident and had the reaction of most people: kind of interested and amused that our vice president had shot a guy. All of the requisite jokes flooded to my mind.
But what was the response of the White House press corps? It was a barrage of questions pitched to a curiously inept Scott McClellan that could perhaps best be summed up as a bunch of middle-aged professionals re-enacting a tantrum thrown by a two year old because their sibling was allowed to play with a toy before they were.
Various reporters peppered McClellan not with questions concerning the nature of the incident or possible fallout of the event, but solely with questions concerning why a Corpus Christi news outlet received word of the shooting from a private citizen before the White House press corps was informed by a government official. The substance of these questions and their answers notwithstanding, since that is a discussion for another time and place, this shameful video led me to my final conclusion: news media is a business. The reporters and their papers and television shows exist to do One Thing and One Thing Only -- to make money.
I will be the first person to admit that there is nothing wrong with this. Indeed, there is everything right with this; human society works best when everyone pursues his or her own bottom line professionally and is intensely compassionate privately. That being said, however, it is unfortunate when the public confuses that attempt to make money with some almost ridiculous ideal of a Free Press. There have been numerous institutions in human history that existed and had their true purposes go unquestioned because of a fervent devotion to their ideals -- and recently humanity has thankfully begun to move away from this religious devotion to the archetype.
The press has, in some ways, become a modern religion. It exists for stated ideals, and few question its worth because doing so might question those ideals. In reality, we can all greatly benefit, both personally and socially, from a free press that functions because it primarily wants to make money and secondarily wants to do all the good that a free press does. It is high time we open our eyes and stop feeding the beast; we need to start using the press for what it does well, which is provide us a potentially slanted look at important goings-on, while remembering that it is culpable of the same human flaws of arrogance and ignorance as are the rest of us.
