Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Kennedy Vs. Nixon Fighting for Health Care 1971

Ted Kennedy way ahead of his time, but what stood out for me in this video is the way the media explained varying health care plans, giving people information and letting THEM decide. Impressive. When the lies came out about pulling plugs on grannies, not a single media outlet said: that is a lie, that is wrong. Instead, they said: the White House denies death panels. Is it because our media has limited resources these days, or limited brain power or a different mandate?
In this video, Daniel Schorr, now with NPR, and other broadcasters contrast Nixon and Kennedy's plan. I've never seen our media do anything like this. Now all our media does is point its cameras at wingnuts. How about analyzing and breaking complex subjects into meaningful bits that people can understand. It's the media's job to look at complex issues and figure out in an objective manner: what are the facts. Our political debates, which have so much consequence to the American people, have gone to the wingnuts and the blame goes, in part, to the media. Our media is bent on entertaining. But perhaps that's what Americans have demanded. Who's dumbing down who?