Truth Usually Wins Out - In Spite of Us All

Public confidence in government has eroded in recent times,  It's beginnings can probably be traced to stubborn attorney Jim Garrison, single-handedly leading a campaign to uncover the truth behind the 1960's era JFK slaying.

The news media has tended to stay on the politically safe side of these kinds of controversies, patronizing  the government and ignoring or even attacking adversaries armed with better facts.

The public's trust in the news media has perhaps reached an all time low, and national press icons are admitting to what has been obvious for some time.

Many  will claim the press is "liberal" while some say  the reverse.  But few who are awake will attempt to argue that the media does not pander to government, and a reasonable person cannot help but see both a "conservative" slant and strong tilt toward the Democrats.

Ralph Nader is about as popular with the press as is George Bush.

The phenomena may be in part a leftover from the successful FDR Roosevelt years, a time when the big networks formed and saw salvation in a moralistic federal government wiping out old prejudices and rescuing the poor with redistributed wealth, giving them national prominence and good stature. Columbia Broadcasting and Huntley/Brinkley became America's modern day saints.

But technology is passing up these noble men of yesteryear, and search engines and the all important keyword is the new mantra.  The vast right wing conspiracy is more than a foolish phrase uttered by a former First Lady, it is a keyword, or string of them.  If I repeat it and repeat it, "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy", "Vast Right ...",  you will be brought to my web site.  The vast right wing conspiracy is thus an enticer, like "controversy", or "scandal", "mistrust", or big scandal names like "Oklahoma Bombing", "TWA 800", and "Mena Airport", site of an alleged biggest cocaine smuggling operation in US history.  The more I repeat the vast right wing conspiracy throughout the web page, the higher will be my place on the search engines.

What begins as a search for truth or goodness eventually falls into a petty game of outdoing others like you, to survive and if we're lucky, prosper.

This site, like television's Walter Cronkite followed by the epitome of "balanced journalism" Dan Rather, may eventually be no different.  Ads placed in a frame spout the virtues of truth and justice, ignored by all the media.  But there's money there, a commission for every pick and point and purchase, and like the repeating and repeating of the vast right wing conspiracy, the more that you pick the greater need I will have to perpetuate the ... truth?  Maybe.

In spite of all of us and our petty need to be first in the ratings or on the search engine results, there is one shining bit of truth: It wins out every time, eventually.

So go ahead, search out the keywords and watch CBS ratings fall.

--Editor, the News Page, June 27, 2001         Back to News

.