Common Sense University

              The first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America - the Bill of Rights - were ratified effective December 15, 1791. The very first Amendment reads as follows:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

            This amendment is undoubtedly the most referenced one of the Bill of Rights in that it firmly establishes in clear language rights of all people while limiting the power of Congress (consisting of the House of Representatives and the Senate) in law-making ability. Once again, we are in awe of the wisdom and foresight of the Founding Fathers of this country well over two hundred years ago. Their concerns were obviously grounded in experiences living under royal rulers and tyrannies in Europe and it was for them truly important to spell out these concerns and safeguard against limitations when it came to certain freedoms in these early amendments to the Constitution.

            You might have noticed, that we bolded above the four words ‘or of the press’ since this is the topic of this article. It was of extreme importance for the press to be free of government dictates or directives in order to write and publish accurately and truthfully about events, all issues and topics as they happened and occurred. It also meant for the press to be able to be critical of actions as taken by any entity, be they government, corporate, religious, political parties or any other private group. It has served the people of America well and the so called ‘press’ - what we in today’s world refer to as media - has for the most part lived up to its expectations by investigating and uncovering misdeeds, wrong doings, criminal acts by a vast variety of individuals as well as groups. For example, it was the diligent work and persistence of two Washington Post reporters in the 1970’s, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, who dug up the facts and brought about the truth of the Watergate scandal, resulting in the resignation of President Richard Nixon and the criminal prosecution of several Nixon Administration members.

            While we do not know the beginning of the trend, we here at Common Sense Politics do not like how the media - press, television and radio - has changed in years past to the present. This industry has evolved into something different from what originally was intended to be ‘the Freedom of the Press’. The constitutional guarantee of this ‘freedom’ was not meant to be used for opinion forming purposes but to give this industry the right to report the truth about everything.

            What do we mean by this? We do not like the fact that negative news items get top billing on a consistent basis. Someone once phrased this ‘If it bleeds, it leads’. In other words disasters, natural or man-made, crimes of any kind be they murders, kidnappings, corporate fraud, people’s sufferings and so on will take priority to so called ‘good news’ any day, any week, any month or any year. The reasoning behind this is called that people in general are not as interested in good news. We wholeheartedly disagree with this! We like to read about rescues, individuals winning battles against fatal diseases, athletes achieving new heights and goals in their respective sports, stories about heroism and survival and overcoming incredible odds and so on. Why has the media determined that the local evening news for example has to begin with the traffic accident on the nearest freeway? Most newscast in metropolitan areas will spent the first ten to fifteen minutes about the murders, drive-by shootings, traffic accidents etc. that happened during the past 24 hours. Do the families sitting down for dinner after a hectic day really want to know all this and just lap up the negative news of the day? We do not think so.

            Another major concern of ours is the inclusion of opinions and speculations in stories of any kind. Instead of just reporting the facts as they exist, there is the immediate addition and personal belief of potential consequences of what just has happened. Take for example the recent 5.4 Richter scale earthquake near Los Angeles in Southern California. This was the first strong earthquake in this area since the one centered in Northridge in January 1994. Instead of just reporting the facts about this latest earthquake where no lives were lost, no major damage to structures occurred, the media membership had to embellish the story by commencing to speculate whether or not this one was the forerunner of the anticipated ‘Big One’ for this region. There is absolutely no basis of fact for this sort of nonsense, no matter the intensive studies of major earthquake faults, any kind of even minor reliable earthquake prediction is fiction! To our knowledge, the only somewhat reliable earthquake predictors are our pets that have been observed in the past to act strangely before earthquakes. Why then include this type of speculation in the reports and stories about the 5.4 event on July 29? Could it be the focus on the negative, we strongly believe and think so.

            But the major issue we have with this media behavior is their constant attempts to influence opinions on the part of their readers, listeners and viewers. We can safely state that there is no article or report in the political arena that is not spiked by the respective author and this holds true for both sides of the spectrum. The conservatives have to bash the liberals and the liberals have to bash the conservatives. Since the media membership is about 85 percent liberal and the rest conservative, the news stories are truly unbalanced when it comes to what people get to read, to listen to and watch.

            Back to the Founding Fathers: Did they intend to give the press this kind of freedom? In other words, is it perfectly alright to use this ‘freedom’ to influence the population as to what the truth and facts are? We think not! Or was this ‘freedom’ just intended and therefore limited to be free of repercussions when writing truths and facts about others and events? We think so! Just to be clear: We have absolutely no problem with editorial pieces by journalists or any other individual; we just think that any slanting or embellishment of a factual story on an event or a person in the public eye etc is wrong and is taken the constitutionally guaranteed “Freedom of the Press” too far.