Media Bias

By Al Horn

If I didn't think the comics and sports section of the local paper was worth what I pay Monday thru Friday, I wouldn't bother buying it.

When I was a youth living near St. Louis we had two papers. You could almost count on them providing a different view on any major topic. The funny thing is that one paper had the word 'Democrat' in its title. That paper folded, literally, several years ago. The current paper is so slanted towards the Democratic Party, they fear mentioning, much less supporting any other agenda.

Prior to the elections they posted a series of endorsements. It was heavily in favor of the Democrats. If they supported a Republican it would be because said politician had shown a history of voting across party lines. I guess the only good Republican is one that occasionally votes along their line of thinking.

If you were a politician belonging to a third party during this last election you were strictly on your own. The local paper used the 'experience' card to exclude any endorsements. It didn't matter if the candidate had the tools to perform the job. Excuse me, unless you're elected to office, how will you ever gain experience. I suppose their line of thinking is if you haven't paid your dues by getting elected as the dog catcher of some flea-bitten town first, you aren't qualified for any county, state, or national offices.

This is the same mentality the former owners of the company I work for had; if you didn't have a piece of paper that said you were an engineer, you were not smart enough to be hired as one. There has been plenty of technicians come and gone that could out engineer some of the college educated people this company has hired. They recently started rethinking those kinds of decisions.

The editors of this paper seem to think they know what is best for the people of this fine state. They take potshots at opposing views and are not afraid to apply ridicule in the form of educated opinion. Any time they present two sides of an opinion they start off with the dissenting opinions remarks and tend to finish the article with quotes from the side they support in hopes that the last thing you read is what will stay in your mind.

A week before the elections they posted two negative letters from 'readers' concerning the state amendment for road taxes. Supporters wanted all taxes collected to go to road departments instead of into the states general revenue fund where the legislators could play shell games with the money. Detractors screamed about the money that education would lose.

I wrote a letter to the local paper asking people what was wrong with taking the money collected for a certain purpose and actually applying it to that cause. My letter and any others sent in were ignored. So much for equal time. But wait, it gets even better. The Saturday before the election this same paper used it's editorial page to review readers concerns about the election issues. Again, only dissenting opinions were printed.

As more and more media outlets get gobbled up by conglomerates, the people will continue to see only what the management of these companies want them to see. This is also the reason our country needs cheap, reliable Internet access. As people learn to utilize this extraordinary tool to seek out information on political parties and the issues of the day, the local media outlets will only be good for a few laughs.