Generik passes on a question he and some of the others were discussing last week at Zeitgeist:
Where does the average person (meaning someone who is not obsessed with politics and/or a news junkie, like... uh... us, for instance), who has limited time in a day, what with balancing career and family and such, go for a straight, comprehensive, objective shot of news and current affairs? Something that can be reasonably informative and not completely biased, and that can dispense that information in a half hour to an hour, at least three to five days a week.It's a great question, and it highlights an enormous problem. The information path of least resistance is so compromised, so insular and clubby, so tilted against serious consideration of real issues and rigged in favor of terminal glibness, that it distorts everything it touches. Even if most people had the inclination to dig deeper, though, how many people have the time?
So Generik is talking about a pressing need here. I just wish I had an answer.
When I posed the question to Jody, she suggested The Daily Show. That's not a bad answer--people who watch it are certainly much better informed than the average citizen--but what does it say about the news media in this country that satirical news is a more reliable source than the serious kind?
I'm tempted to say Al-Jazeera, just to piss off the wingnuts. Like The Daily Show, that's not a wholly facetious suggestion: it covers perspectives and, more importantly, entire continents that are effectively shut out of domestic television news (lead story the other day: the inauguration of Joseph Kabila). (And regardless of what one thinks of any particular editorial position, Al-Jazeera has been a powerful force for democratization and open society in the Middle East...a point the wingnuts don't even try to address.) Unfortunately, it isn't yet available on cable.
The best suggestion I can think of would be Memeorandum. It's one-stop shopping; it covers a lot of ground, but offers links to deeper discussion; and it links to bloggers across the spectrum. The average person without a lot of time can at least get a sense of what's going on, and when the Washington press corps is out to lunch (as they so often are) he or she can follow up with critiques of the official version. It's kind of a lame and obvious suggestion, but there it is.
But hey, I'm not Harry Truman: the buck definitely doesn't stop here. So I'm going to pass Generik's request off on y'all, the astute, erudite, generous, and eminently flatterable readers of If I Ran the Zoo. How would y'all answer Generik's question? What are your suggestions?
[That's all, folks]
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