Down The Sewer Pipe – Politically Speaking

In this discussion of politics as applied to governance it must be keep in the back of ones mind that the news media is part of the process.   Some times they out right lie other times they just misquotes and or misrepresents the office holders and candidates views.  It is a mistake to think that the news media is unbiased; they call it slanting, or incapable of affecting their views on this process.  On occasion this causes or can cause the entire nation to go to war, remember the Main?

On a day in Havana harbor a visiting United States battle ship’s boiler safety value malfunctioned and sailors lost their lives.  Newspapers pressured public opinion and the president of the United States of America was forced, coursed actually, by the new media to go to war.

Marshaling public opinion is what the media does, newspapers, television, radio and Internet media can totally force polices coupled with actions.  Actions that when proved unpopular not only shape the political debate but the process of governance as well.  Truth can be ignored, misinterpreted, or made to be something other than what it is. 

The news media can also force persons to become candidates when those persons are not ready or fit for the office that they are running for.  After two years of sniping at elected officials from the comfort of my home via letters to the editor a local newspaper editor suggested it was time to “put up or shut up”.  I ran for office in an attempt to defeat an incumbent and I lost – big time.  My big lesion was to be wary of the “news” media, at the same time I also noticed that very few newspaper reporters I spoke to actually quoted me accurately

What this has to do with the political arena is that one should remember that the very news media that puts a candidate forward seeks to control that candidate.  Case in point is the current governor of Oregon as he relates to the population while making nice with the various forms of the media.  After winning his last election, being elated at having done so, he wanted to crow about it at a news conference.  The weeks prior to the election saw the weather turn sour and rivers flooded property, driving people from their homes, business and farms.  At the news conference a reporter cut him off in mid speech to inquire about the conditions and loss of property.  The governor’s response came off as callous and the media lost no time in making whatever headlines they could.

So when making political decisions it remains important to define the debate as you see it.  Take reporters and others to task when they misquote one and correct the image that somehow a newspaper or other media person or persons knows more about governance than you do.  The media is not elected to your position and the elected official actually owes no legal or constructional responsibility to it.

If this becomes forgotten then, as we have seen, it is a small step to go down the sewer pipe!

Sherman