Violence in the Media

A good editorial in the NYTimes today, by Frank Rich, about the failure of the media to do its job: which I do think is at the root of a lot of our current problems.

Of course, at the root of *that* problem is that the media's actual job is to make money, not be a free press. Not sure how we go about solving that, in a country where the true religion is capitalism.

Anyway, the thesis of Rich's editorial is that the country isn't, in fact, anti-Christian, no matter what Gibson, Dobson and Falwell and their buddies would have you believe -- it's just being reported that way by a media that is more interested in creating a professional wresting atmosphere, in order to boost ratings, than in getting at what is actually happening in the nation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/arts/19rich.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=

This strikes me as acurate: but, unfortunately, what then happens is that folk who are *only* getting their data from Faux News, Bill O'Reilly, Rush and Gibson and the ilk, tend to believe the version of the world they see presented to them via those venues --and, by believing that world, they create that world. Or so claims the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

That's what makes me nervous.