It's healthy for democracy to keep a public watch on the work of elected officials, but we also need to be certain that what is reported is accurate. Read this from William Boardman, Reader Supported News:
“It’s a frightening scenario when a free press is actually a bought and
paid-for press and it can happen on both sides,” said Ellen Miller,
executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan watchdog
group.
McConnell campaign tapes highlight some of the tactics used by many campaigns to smear their opponents. The briefing on the tapes was a typical opposition research briefing for a candidate, and typical reactions within a campaign. In most cases this kind of campaign discussion leads to decisions about making public attacks against the opponent, or encouraging people not directly connected to the campaign to make such attacks. The typical tactic is to feed the information to some friendly publication who will carry it as a "news" item.
"The interesting thing is if you listen to the whole tape, you see Mitch McConnell doesn't participate that much. He's there listening, but at no time does he say, 'I don't want to do this, I don't want to go there, I don't want to go into her mental health history, I don't want to go into her religious views.'"
New documentary "Shadows of Liberty" as reported by DemocracyNow! "Using individual cases of journalists whose attempts to tell their
stories have been muzzled by corporations and the government, the film
shows how a corporate-controlled media can silence the truth about
issues ranging from war to labor practices."
DemocracyNow! is being broadcast from the National Conference for Media Reform:
The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term “illegal immigrant” or the
use of “illegal” to describe a person. Instead, it tells users that
“illegal” should describe only an action, such as living in or
immigrating to a country illegally.
This article by Craig Timberg raises a good issue to consider. What impact search engines can have on political elections. The study reported on here also demonstrates the extent to which Media has an impact on the choices voters make. If search engine ranking can have an impact, then consider the impact of what stories the major media outlets decide to report.
