Dear Media: Patriarchy Is Not A Necessity

You know what? When I started my Dear Media: series last year I never thought it would be a series. I just figured I would write that one piece to shine the light on the missteps of you, our media, and you would have a revelation. I'm adorable, it's true. I can hardly help it - I came this way.

Over the last two days all media have covered, to one extent or another, Donald Trumps assault on Secretary Clinton because her husband cheated on her. It wasn't enough, apparently, to cover the story. You all needed to harry Clinton to try to get a response from her. After having realized she is above such nonsense, you just determined to discuss it among yourselves. Fucking INCREDIBLE.

Once again, you are asking Trump to drive your narrative. How embarrassing.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is a rapist. When that was added to the public discourse last summer, no one wanted to touch it. I wrote about your complete dismissal of the topic here but I'm not anyone the general public is going to find and read. It was your responsibility to tell the American voters about how he treats women. If he won the election, he would be in quite a unique position to steer the rights of women. Wouldn't that be an important element of the vetting expected of our media?

And today, instead of taking the opportunity to question the motives of an obvious misogynist and inform about his own treatment of women, you further victimize a woman by asking her to comment on her husbands infidelity. Repeatedly. Are you comfortable with the patriarchy you perpetuate? It is your choice, after all. You could aspire to better. I'm sure your mothers would appreciate it if you tried harder. Right now they're probably all pretty disgusted. I sure as hell would be.


Shame on YOU!  ... Mean Progressive

Dear Media: ABC I Have Snap Judgment for You and Whoopi Goldberg

Yeah? You know what Whoopi (and all producers of The View)? Your show is supposed to be a place for women to come together and hear perspectives of other women. Regardless of whether or not one identifies as a feminist, a community for women should certainly not be perpetuating patriarchy. Whoopi's comments and blind support of Cosby are so extreme and unsettling that its comparable to those in society who demand that President Obama is a Muslim terrorist because they haven't yet been given enough evidence to support the idea that he isn't. What evidence do you think you are going to get these many years later, Whoop? Do you think we might be able to find some DNA from a hotel room in 1967? Do you think the rapist has a video library someone might be able to dig up? Will you need 100 more women to come forward and give similar testimonies? I am disgusted by this blatant disregard for the rights of women and compel those who run The View to sincerely consider the voice you are sending to American women and the voices her big mouth has managed to already force off of the show because she is such a bully (ehem...Ive been paying attention and I am not the only one).

Whenever I have an opportunity to put someone in their place about 'supposed' domestic violence allegations, I gladly take it. I will always do the same for rape, too, Whoopi Goldberg. It is curious that these are the laws, both overwhelmingly perpetrated against women, which are acceptable to question the validity of. Just by questioning allegations, one not only negates the victim, her trauma and her safety, but also perpetuates the societal norm which implies that women aren't trustworthy and any violations against them will require extensive scrutiny whenever reported.

It pisses me off  whenever I have to deal with anyone who contends that we do not live in a patriarchal society. One literally has to forego reality to sincerely believe that. For nearly 100 years we have been unable to find 2/3 of states to ratify the ERA and one of our two major political parties is still working tirelessly to take our rights away as if our capacity to decide what to do with our bodies and how to manage our own families is just too much for us to be entrusted with.

In America it has always been acceptable, and even encouraged, to promote women as sexual objects, but at the same time it has always been absolutely unseemly and disgraceful for a woman to explore and express her own sexuality. Such was the case when Lisa Bonet, the actress who portrayed Bill Cosby character, Dr. Huxtable's daughter, Denise on The Cosby Show in the late 80s. I remember when he came out and publicly condemned her for having been in a movie called Angel Heart and doing a sex scene, but I wasn't old enough to see it in the theater at the time. I remember thinking it sounded like she made a porno by the way Cosby made it sound and was disappointed because she was my favorite of all of the Cosby kids as I identified with her free-spirit. I was too young to understand that I was in a patriarchal society, but Cosby wasn't, and neither was Whoopi Goldberg. That should've given her a clue about his ideas about women.

It is unbelievable to me that ABC is giving us a woman's voice that is willfully diminishing the place of women in our society instead of promoting us. ABC has had plenty of allegations of promoting contempt toward women in the past with lawsuits filed for discrimination in hiring and creating shows to display women as they 'truly' are: fighting over men and looking ridiculous on The Bachelor, back in the days of their understood and accepted subjugation on The Astronaut Wives Club and being backstabbing little minxes on Mistresses. Well done, ABC. Maybe you should just come out now and endorse every Regressive Party candidate running for any office anywhere. Its quite obvious your opinions of women coincide.

Dear Media: There Are Terrorists Among Us

Terrorism is a very important issue in America. I know this because you tell me that. Often. I have been duly conditioned to fear the terrorists among us. I know that terrorists are those who mean to do harm to create fear, perpetuated for an economic, religious, political or ideological goal, which deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (non-military or civilians). This weekend, America had a terrorist attack with a shooting and ended with a bombing in Dallas. It feels funny to have to report this to you, as in truth, it is your job to report this to me, but as you have neglected to do so, I will ask that you please research this story and catch up on its details to report to the rest of America. We need to be mindful of the terrorists among us. Our media does a lot of work to remind us of terrorism. Sometimes it feels like it might be overdone a little, to tell the truth. But there are a lot of stories about terrorists that you neglect to tell us about.

I know that Americans spend much of their Monday mornings at work discussing the weekend with their co-workers. The morning shows have a lot to do with what people think are relevant stories. That is a lot of responsibility, isn't it? Or it is a lot of power? I guess it is important to differentiate that, huh? If you felt it was your responsibility to sincerely inform Americans about terrorism you should be pretty embarrassed about the big story you all missed this morning. If it is about power, then I don't suppose it is remotely important to you what any of your audience wants to hear about anyway. If we have to seek our information elsewhere, what is the point of watching you at all? Is it true? Are you really just a means of entertainment? If this is the case, you might as well start reporting lies and creating stories to give us like the Fox cable channel with the word 'news' in its title.

I did see this weekend that the terrorist in Texas was white. I also heard that he had mental health issues. That happens a lot, doesn't it? We never questioned whether or not the Tsarnaev brothers had any mental health disorders, but I am sure there is a really good reason for that which has nothing to do with any deliberate attempt to perpetuate the very narrow definition of a terrorist that Americans are beginning to misunderstand.

The Today Show did not offer us any news about the terrorist attack in America this morning. We heard about shark attacks on eastern beaches. You reminded us about the escaped convicts from the prison in New York and the cost of their daily search. You also told us about the pending Republicans entering the campaign today, as well. I was hoping, however, to hear about the terrorist in Dallas.

Good Morning America told us about the terrorist attack that was offered to us this weekend as supposition with a stranded airplane in Canada. Those on the flight were offered "little information" about what was going on. It was very curious, and even more frightening: It was an airplane! Maybe we were about face another 9/11 attack? I don't know because you literally offered us no information at the conclusion of the story. The fear was instilled, though. We are still worried about any pending attacks. But we did not hear about the actual terrorist attack in Dallas.

CBS This Morning told us about Jeb Bush and Secretary Clinton opening their campaigns today. We heard about the shark attacks in North Carolina and the escaped convicts in New York. We even were offered insights into the woman in Washington state who had parents that were white but had lied about her ethnicity on her job application with the NAACP. There was no mention of the terrorist in Texas.

I believe that if this terrorist had been from a nationality other than American or a religion other than Christian, this terrorist attack would have opened all of the news shows this morning. I believe that all of the nations news outlets would have sold out the hotels in Dallas for the next month to make sure they had a staff on call for any new developments in the next several weeks about any known associations or recent contacts the terrorist might have made. As a member of your audience who has come to expect that kind of coverage on terrorism stories, I would still like to know the answers.

The embarrassment of our media is an ongoing tragedy in our country. Outlets and journalists sometimes have to go through the federal court system to report on things that are sincerely newsworthy. Some even need to go to court to prove that they should even be allowed to call themselves news. Maybe because other outlets have been told that they have a freedom of speech to couple with their freedom of the press which precludes them from having any actual responsibility in what they report, all media believe it is acceptable for them to do the same. I am here to tell you that it is not. You are insulting the Americans who seek out actual information and the truths behind those stories. If we were desperate for nonsense, we would watch the Fox cable channel with the word 'news' it its title. As such. I imagine you are all defining your irrelevance each day. Well done.

Dear Media: Your Advertisers Want More Money

I had the most ridiculous conversation with my mom last night on the phone. I asked her if she had heard about the interview with the former Deputy Director of the CIA where he admitted that Dick Cheney lied when he said Iraq had reconstituted nuclear weapons. My mom didn't believe me. And do you want to know how she knew that I was not telling her the truth? She didn't want to hurt my feelings so she implied first that I must have misunderstood the interview, then she reasoned with me, and I quote, "Angie, if that happened, why wouldn't it have been on the news?" Great question mom! I don't know. I don't know why they don't bother to cover a lot of things that are newsworthy but find it necessary to open every hour with a story about a deflated football or some pseudo-patriotic bullshit that an asshole politician decided to say on their campaign today.

I find myself still exhausted by that call today. Of course, I am not the only American who is pissed. I am not the only one of your consumers who is being ignored daily. I have decided that this time I will forward my letter on to your biggest advertisers, too. It seems that you want us to constantly be mindful of the fact that you are a money making venture whose concern for the actual information you are meant to be relaying to us is secondary to the profits you can turn. (We can tell because of how much time you spend hyping and telling the same stories that are more worthy of tabloids than actual news coverage). So I will let your advertisers know that if you covered a story like this, you could certainly be making them a lot of money. People would tune in. More people. More than the ones you just want to come back every day, but the people who don't even watch the news.

Ewww... are you drooling? Wipe that. Now listen.

Two nights ago the former CIA Deputy Director, Michael Morrell, was on Hardball with Chris Matthews. Morrell admitted that, even though Cheney told America that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted nuclear weapons, this was not true. The information Cheney offered to finally get America behind going to war in Iraq, even though we knew that the attacks on 9/11 were from bin Laden, was a lie. This was not reported anywhere. Why? How?

The sad part is that last night when he closed his show, Matthews was actually upset, you could tell, by the fact that Cheney had lied. The rest of us were surprised to have heard it verified on live television, but no one who has been paying attention was really surprised that it was true. Matthews has such a sweet and pure heart. His love for politics and America is so sincere that he often doesn't see through the rhetoric a lot of us do. Because he is that type of person, it should have been even more important that this story be covered nationally. No one reporting on it (who is in a legitimate news organization) could question whether or not there was anything untoward about the story having come from Chris Matthews. And, lest you forget, you certainly have no problem relaying absolute nonsense you hear from the Fox cable channel with the word 'news' in its title.

America united after 9/11. We were one country. I stood behind my leadership and ignored the fact that they were of another party. I didn't care. I was an American. My country was attacked. And with that unity and with our excitement for retribution, our Vice President created information to take us into a war that would benefit he and the Bush family. And its only costs have ever been felt on the families of those lost and injured and the economy of the country that was so anxious to offer its misdirected trust.

Just think, not only could you let America know tonight that you had a story about how we fought a war that we are still paying for, and, more importantly offer the cost in the numbers of lives lost, because Dick Cheney told lies, but then you would have many night of follow up stories. The kinds of stories that are actually newsworthy. You would have real American stories to tell. About how Americans feel after having been betrayed. And about the myriad circumstances we now find ourselves because of those choices. You could go back to remind us about how Cheney commissioned a story to report on his lies. And then he offered those lies to Congress. There would be real goddamned substance in your reporting. It sounds glorious, doesn't it?

It is your job to bring the information to the country. It is your job to remind us of what we had been and help us to heal so we can find our way back there. At present, we have leaders who are trashing the name of America every day. They demand her exceptionalism while condemning the majority of Americans for not having met their very narrow definitions of those who are exceptional. You give them validity when you give them a voice. As was true in  2003, is true today, you are perpetually complicit in where we are finding ourselves. It is time to bring America back to a place that is unified and healthy. And it needs to start today.

Dear Media: Is Fox Your Master?

For some reason, Americans are supposed to accept a biased report on all issues out of your fear of being condemned for being too liberal by people who, quite sincerely, have their own bias and their own media. The conservative media is an astounding conglomerate of groups who report the same misinformation to create conspiracies and encourage hate and fear. They have a cable television channel with the word 'news' in its title, they have a myriad of bloggers that right wing consumers accept as journalists, they have noted radio personalities and they have their hands in many of the nations largest newspapers. This is literally an entire market that, due to freedoms of the press and speech, Americans have to accept as being a part of our society and hope that the rest of Americans have enough sophistication to know the difference. However, we should not then be forced to accept that the rest of our media opt to follow them directly down the rabbit hole.

You are literally allowing them to direct the narrative in America. As a resource, I offer you this: every morning open this link and watch it on your way to work while reminding yourself that your sole responsibility as a journalist is to offer the country true journalism completely devoid of anything that would be found on a station which would air this in something other than a diatribe against what the worst of our society has to offer. (You are quite welcome).

I am amazed quite often at the times media are compelled to retract and apologize for inaccurate information. Recently several media outlets had to retract a story that had only been aired on Fox about a black man in Baltimore having been shot in the back by a police officer. How is it possible to have a cable television channel which has been discredited countless times not just for journalism in specific stories, but as a news outlet altogether, lead the narrative for any media that would want to be noted as creditworthy? No true journalist in America believes that the stories or opinions they offer are based on fact. Then how can anyone excitedly pick up their reporting and offer it to a respectable audience? Because you are lazy.

Your laziness has been on display lately as all news stations started reporting on the varied answers Jeb Bush has offered about whether or not he would've taken us into Iraq if he'd known then what we know now. I mean, it was such a triumph, right? Because he was changing his answer again and again. And you have been conditioned to know a 'flip-flop' when you hear one and pounce. Oh how exciting. In all of your excitement you missed the opportunity, as journalists, to ask yourselves, "So, if the 'hard-hitting' question that stumped him came from the Fox channel, should it be repeated to others or should I take a minute to analyze the question to at least make sure the facts are included in the question and any responses?" Instead, you repeated the question and allowed the answer to then direct or conclude the narrative with no contradiction. None of the candidates or pundits are being corrected when offering their denouncement of GW Bush to reply, "By the way, Hillary Clinton doesn't want to have to answer this question, either." She has already given us her answer. And no one is taking the time to remind us of that. Is fair journalism only a concern when attempting to deflect scorn from the right? Christ!

That has concluded every dialogue offered. And that pissed me off. I was so pissed off that I managed to miss the even bigger failure pointed out by Rachel Maddow last night (there is a reason one of us has a television show and the other has a blog (wink)). Once the generic slant is offered back to Secretary Clinton, it is then your responsibility to interrupt and inform your audience who may not be aware by inserting into the dialogue "To correct you quickly [fill in the blank with name of candidate or pundit], Secretary Clinton has already answered that question in her book. And she was not a member of the administration who commissioned the answer then offered to Congress." (You will be forgiven for finding a more respectful way of saying that, but not for omitting it altogether). The onus is on you, the journalist, whose job is to inform America, to remind us of the context of the questions and their answers. You cannot expect your newsmakers to give honest accounts. And you cannot expect your audience to know everything, otherwise, we wouldn't need you, would we?

This morning in an interview with Rand Paul on CNN, the candidate was asked about what he would do about ISIS. He delved into a discussion where he inserted a sentence, unchallenged even though this was obviously pre-recorded, saying that President Obama wasn't hard on terrorism because he called the attacks on Fort Hood 'workplace violence' instead of 'terrorism,' the word Paul, apparently, would prefer be used. This is a favorite talking point repeated in the right-wing media. But on CNN, this new idea to the thoughtful American audience was allowed to air without having been questioned. Of course, the interview was concluded by Alisyn Camerota asking about his curly hair and its maintenance. I guess we couldn't really be expected to find anything integral from that piece of journalism, so were we meant to discount the entire interview? In asking for so many contrived understandings, you are asking a lot of your audience.

In 2013, CBS apologized for misinformation offered in an interview of a source using an assumed name about Benghazi that ended up to have been proven false. It was not a live broadcast. The story offered was not vetted and was offered to America as fact. CBS bore a lot of criticism from many journalistic outfits for this failure and for the retraction which was insincere and offered no explanation for their profound neglect. Here is a way to avoid this in the future: If someone wants to use an assumed name, be damned sure you know that they are legit. Also, again, if the story is about something only the right wing is excitedly jumping all over, there is a very very good chance its bullshit.

We learned from tabloid print, and then tabloid television, that people get really excited when something negative happens or someone says something derogatory about another person in America. And those stories sell copy or ad space. And news outlets, at their core, are moneymaking businesses. I suppose Americans are just supposed to accept that you will run this type of content to make money? I don't accept it. I don't accept that because something is outrageous I should hear about it every hour on the 24/7 news channels. I don't accept that you compel your viewers to come back so you can tell them the same thing you told them the last hour. I don't accept that you are giving me garbage because you don't demand more of yourselves.

It is unfathomable that a man like Peter Schweitzer can publish a book and outlets which we are supposed to consider legitimate report on it. It is hardly newsworthy that he has written another book. New books are released every week. You might find it newsworthy that less reputable news outlets are reporting on an, as yet, unreleased book by a man who has been discredited at least 10 times. Otherwise, it is not newsworthy. Let the right wing media cover it. Let America see distinction in the media who don't cover the tabloidesque stories. I feel insulted when I hear these ridiculous stories coming from anyone other than right wing talking heads. It is as if those of us who are intelligent and genuinely want to know what is going on in the world are either irrelevant or expendable as an audience. Please give the rest of America the respect we are due and just ignore the stories that are, quite obviously, garbage.

The New York Times and Washington Post were contractually obligated to report on the book release. What kind of shit is that? So, before its release, they were "briefed on the books findings" along with major Republican candidates for the 2016 Presidential election, and, without having read a single word of the book, without having vetted a single contention, its conspiratorial information was reported to America. We were not offered information about the illegitimacy of his many past 'findings.' It is not journalism to assume your readership has such information. And it certainly isn't journalism to report on what is, quite obviously, slanderous nonsense meant to be released just as Secretary Clinton is beginning her campaign for the Presidency. The New York Times mentioned the fact that the book was published by a News Corp company, but neglected to tell its readers that News Corp is owned by Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the Fox cable channel with the word "news" in its name.

Upon its release (when people actually had read it and were able to vet the information they were reporting on), Amazon immediately released a message to buyers that significant changes had been made to the Kindle copies purchased. But, of course, the damage has been done. The negative associations attributed to Secretary Clinton that were all based on supposition are now ingrained in the minds of Americans. And that was the objective. And you did that.

That distinction is what would make you the legitimate media, at present you are not. You would actually prove your legitimacy by reporting on the discredited outlets who did report on it and then had to retract their contentions while holding yourself in esteem for having ignored it altogether. But when you end up adding your own retractions to the list, you become their equal. Ill bet that as a journalist or a media outlet, that thought just kind of made you queasy. If it were my career, it would certainly offer me a nauseated pause.

Deliberately neglecting to inform Americans about the goings on in the country is bias. The majority of Americans still support a woman's right to choose offered by Roe V Wade. However, a House Bill passed last week to limit those rights profoundly and Americans weren't informed of it by the major 3 (PBS did cover the story). This bill, if passed, would be cruel and potentially dangerous, as many birth defects are not detectible until after 20 weeks. Not only were Americans not made aware of the passing of this bill, but they were not offered the contradictory information where the Supreme Court found in Colautti V. Franklin:

Because this point [of viability] may differ with each pregnancy, neither the legislature nor the courts may proclaim one of the elements entering into the ascertainment of viability — be it weeks of gestation or fetal weight or any other single factor — as the determinant of when the State has a compelling interest in the life or health of the fetus.

I want to attribute these failings to laziness and not bias. Please prove me right. If you have been lazy in allowing the right to manipulate the narrative, take it upon yourselves to seek truth in your stories and objectively offer your audience all of the information they need to be sincerely informed. As with every political season, I believe that this is one of the most important election cycles in a long time. I think I might be right this time, however. The right wing voters have become noticeably more extreme and all of the present candidates are speaking only to those people. If their dialogue becomes imprinted in the American mind in the next year and a half and they all get the seats they need in DC with the Presidency, we are fucked. I think anyone who can see what is really going on would say the same.

The really cool thing about your job and your industry is that you get to direct the narrative of America. You get to determine what we need to hear and in what manner it should be delivered. That is a very heavy responsibility. How can you allow that responsibility to be dictated by the least credible sources in the industry? They have very overt biases. The rest should not.

We will quickly begin to see noticeable changes in journalism once a few adjustments are made. For instance, there will be little need for phrases like "a credible source has said." The sources credibility should either be clearly defined or be named and allow the audience to interpret their credibility. It should be a rare occasion when your source should require anonymity. And, it should never be necessary in reporting on politics. Politics are, by nature, biased, we have to believe your sources aren't. Likewise, when reporting on 'a study' please offer your audience the information on who performed the study and who commissioned it. I can offer you a study of what people in an apartment complex think about property taxes, but neither I nor my findings would be remotely credible. The right-wing media have their very own studies. They are not reputable and intelligent people realize that. We don't want to have to question your findings, too.

Americans are growing impatient for something they can believe and not have to immediately discount for fear of its being 'more of the same.' Imagine what kind of respect will be afforded the outlet which decides to step up and offer that to us. (Just tell your owners and VPs that means lots of ratings, which means lots of money!!)

Dear Media:

I am a patriotic American. No. Really. I don't just use that as a cheap buzz word because my talking heads told me that I am. I love my country and I sincerely want to help bring her to a healthy place.

As such, I need for you, collectively, to acknowledge your complicity in the tragic place we are finding ourselves at this time. As America is facing so much societal unrest, our journalists are not informing their audience beyond the generic aspects which are being offered on almost all other channels. What is the point of having multiple 24/7 news outlets if there is no means of differentiation? Our politics have become ridiculous. Out of fear, you neglect to report on much of it because you don't want to be condemned as illegitimate for 'liberal bias.' Of course, by offering your audience a deliberately filtered account of facts, you are defining your work as illegitimate. But for a different reason.

In this day and age where absolutely anyone can write and build an audience (ehem), the onus is on you to be the stalwart documentarians of the true chronicle we leave to history. As such, you are failing miserably. You have allowed your messages and their means of delivery to be dictated by your competition. And, thus, you have allowed the standards by which your industry has been maintained to be lowered. Profoundly.

When something newsworthy occurs in America, it is your responsibility to ask yourselves those essential 6 questions. Write them on a sticky note and tape it to your monitor or your cameraman, if necessary. You should always realize that those are the questions your audience is looking to have answered. When you focus too much on one or neglect another, altogether, you are not offering a complete account. You are doing your own legacy and your audience a disservice.

For instance: When a riot breaks out in a city because a ball team has won or lost a championship, ask why. This will be important for future comparisons when other riots break out to create distinctions between the two. And when riots do break out in the future, don't opine to your audience about how unbelievable this is to see in our society. Don't forget to inform them of all of the other riots America has seen lately about sports teams. When protests or rioting break out in a community which has been oppressed for decades, do not spend so much of your time on the who without an in-depth look at who and then asking the most important- why. Do not offer a lazy answer about a young man being murdered by the police. The history of that city and its struggles are important pieces to building the dialogue necessary for the comprehensive understanding Americans will need to have about that young mans death. America is really losing an opportunity to understand and identify with that community.

There is no need to excitedly anticipate the next negative event to happen in the community. Another cable channel will report on that and will feel free to report on it even if it doesn't happen. Take the high road and offer your audience the respect they deserve by rising to their intellectual level. Also, in offering your audience the story of the community, please avoid using derogatory language to define the news makers. As a hint: if any term is used repeatedly on the Fox cable channel with the word 'news' in its title, refrain from using it, you are lowering yourselves to a level that a thoughtful audience will want to disassociate from. Fox has their own built in audience, if you want to appeal to them on their level, you are not a journalist.

When you do a story about a politician, we want to have many questions answered that seem to be negated by all news outlets: Who are they? Why are they running for office? What is their platform? How do they intend to make changes they seek? Presently, the politicians are directing the narrative. If they do not answer the questions America wants answered, don't send the piece to air or print. They are using you as free publicity. And you are letting them.

You are offering politicians a voice to perpetuate their rhetoric. You are neither holding them nor yourselves accountable for what knowledge Americans are being afforded about those who are hoping to shape our futures. If a politician has nothing new to say, there is no need to report on their having repeated the same thing they said the day before. Allow your budget department and management to deal with the fact that they pay for a camera, sound and a reporter to follow them around waiting for them to be interesting. If they fail to offer you anything new, do not insult your audience by giving them bullshit and calling it news.

If a politician offered an actual platform, that would certainly be newsworthy. And if their platform is wildly different than what they have been saying on the stump about their 'ideals,' it is then your responsibility, as journalists, to ask them to explain their contradictions. Out of fear, you are allowing politicians to use you as a tool to manipulate the dialogue in American discourse and lowering the expectations anyone would have of a legitimate and sincere debate. Just because their audience doesn't want to have to use critical thought, doesn't mean the rest of us don't. Lets be honest, they have their own media and aren't listening to you anyway.

If someone has written a book which has not yet been released which offers outlandish information that has not yet been substantiated, that is not news. It should not be reported as such. You have, again, lowered yourselves to the level of the Fox cable channel with the word 'news' in its title. At present, you are competing with them. They are not your competition. Your work should first and foremost be mindful of the fact that, by virtue of their having an obvious bias with opinions they have been paid to have, they are not a credible news outlet. Kindly stop behaving otherwise.

How about you stop reporting it when politicians are offering rumors? How about you use your research skills to see if there is any "there" there before you report it and offer it to the American audience? How about you go back to what you learned when studying to become a journalist and reread the definitions of "newsworthy" and "credibility"? Repeatedly. How about you only report on it when politicians actually create news? Currently you are rewarding them like giving a bone to a dog that has just shit on your floor. How about you start conditioning them to only get to have the free publicity when they do something that a politician should be doing? You are allowing them to dictate your narrative. And that is not journalism.

We have lost a lot of true legends in journalism lately. Have you paid attention to the many remembrances written and broadcast about them by fellow journalists? Do you ever imagine what will be said about you? Do you hope to have a phrase like "journalistic integrity" attributed to your work? As long as this shift of credible media coverage remains the norm, very few of today's journalists will be remembered for having been impartial and thoughtful.

Much more important than your legacy, however, is the legacy of America. You are recording her history every day. It looks pretty bleak, huh? What will future generations think when they research this era in history? You all have a hand in the place we find ourselves and how we will be remembered. Please start working as if that is important to you.