The media may be hurting this nation’s democracy because it is doing a poor job of deciding what stories get through to the public and which ones don’t.

The mass media, by which I mean television, the Internet and radio news, spend too much time trying to entertain people instead of informing us. But by them not telling us everything that goes on in the democracy, the public fails to be informed.

That could be disastrous for the country.

The media makes some things available, but not everything. It may not be sharing the latest news about chemical use against the people of Syria, or the economic sinkhole that the U.S. is currently in.

Media can hurt the country’s democracy, basically making it not a democracy at all, leaving the people in the dark, just like a poor country such as North Korea, Afghanistan, India or Pakistan.

The public is also becoming more caged and limited with the Internet. Some examples are the Stop Online Privacy Act and the Protect IP Act, where the government is trying to limit democratic freedoms online. SOPA and PIPA was rejected by U.S. lawmakers, showing that this country is a democracy.

There are plenty of ways to improve the media. There should be more public media, such as MBPN, NASA TV and the Pentagon Channel. They are all publicly funded.

The Internet also helps democracy, such as when Libyans, Egyptians, and Tunisians were unhappy with their government, they protested on the Internet.

Daniel Moreau

Copy the Story Link