Lights In A Box

In Stephen King's newest column in Entertainment Weekly, he discusses George Clooney's new film "Good Night, And Good Luck", which explores not only Edward R. Murrow's conflict with Joseph McCarthy, but also the downfall of the news media itself- that journalism has moved from a civic duty to just another entertainment field. Here's a good passage from the article that stuck out to me:

"Nobody really likes watching the news, since so little worth reporting is good news-- thus the tendency is still to kill the messenger for the message. Lefties today think the news media have gotten soft and scared; they point to the gloves-on way TV handled the Bush administration's run-up to the war in Iraq as an example. The righties think the media are just a tool of the left wing (of guys like Clooney... and let's throw in Alec Baldwin for good measure), and the anchors won't be happy until anarchy rules Iraq and abortion clinics are as common as ATMs...

...Even more dismaying is the last decade's 'news-flation', with its unforgiveable shoot-from-the-lip scare journalism. Thus, we are told that there may be 10,000 dead in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, that doctors euthanized patients at the height of the chaos (allegations that are still unproven), and that bird flu may soon depopulate the earth. Not to mention nightly updates on the Natalee Holloway 'story' - BREAKING NEWS!- while Africa starves and the Mideast burns."