Pundits



Our media culture has become awash with pundits. From Andrew Sullivan, the eccentric Right-Wing gay journalist, to author-screenwriter Dennis Lehane, who is now speaking as the voice of post-Marathon-Bombing Boston, we get lots of opinions from the wealthy and famous. This has skewed our culture in strange ways. Our talking-heads media is dominated by academics and accomplished journalists. Our mainstream media is dominated by KFC, Macdonald's and pet food manufacturers, the sponsors of trashy broadcast television and internet pop-ups, the main media of the masses.

 

I am a listener and sometime-supporter of public radio. I used to be a regular supporter. However, I have found public radio's shift to Right-of-Center politically on more and more issues to be less supportable within the margins of my ethics. This concerns me greatly. There is a growing media vacuum on the Left end of the political spectrum. Our local Boston public radio outlets went far beyond Right-of-Center to the Right in the recent aftermath of the Marathon Bombing of April 15th this year. Their unbridled and skepticism-free reporting of police and military actions in the city was a departure from their traditional attempts at politically and historically mindful balance.

 

What happens when a country's media goes further and further to the Right? What happens when disaster and crime are used to justify media surrender to being a mouthpiece for police, government or military authority? When does reporting cross the boundary to propaganda? If you know the history of the previous century, you know the sobering answers.