Freedom of the Press: Have they gone too far?..

Our First Amendment rights include “freedom of the press”. Our Press, our Media has been given a mandate by our founding fathers to be the watchdog of the government. To root out corruption and deceit no matter where it leads.

How has the Press done with this mandate? As I write this, we are two weeks away from the 2016 election. For research, I went to the major news network’s FaceBook pages to see what political and election related news was being headlined.

October 25, 2016, 10am Eastern Time:

ABC – What Hillary wants for a Supreme Court Justice, Where Clinton and Trump stand on issues, Republicans in tight race more likely to abandon Donald Trump.

CBS – Clinton no longer shying away from dealing the “woman card”, Democrats try a new strategy to garner black turnout, Salma Hayek claims she turned down a date with Donald Trump, Michael Moore calls Trump voters “legal terrorists”.

NBC – Time for a reality check on Trump’s poll numbers, Trump brags of endorsement that never happened, No the presidential election won’t be the next ‘Brexit’ for pollsters, Poll: Republican party fractured as Hillary Clinton maintains solid lead.

CNN politics – McCarthy: ‘Wind is in our face supporting’ Trump, GOP Sen. Toomey won’t say if he’ll vote for Trump at debate, Schlapp: ‘I am disgusted by the judgment’ in GOP, Clinton turns fire on down ballot Republicans, Jay Z to headline concert for Hillary Clinton, Kaine: Clinton as president would seek Congress’ input for ISIS fight.

MSNBC – Poll: GOP fractured as Clinton maintains solid lead, Biden calls out Trump wants to talk about the issues, Democrats take aim at GOP Senate majority, Gary Johnson: Vote your conscience, Are polls overstating Clinton’s lead?, Poll: Clinton up double digits over Trump, Is Texas up for grabs?, Elizabeth Warren unleashes on Donald Trump over “nasty woman” comment.

Fox News – Check out this Hillary-themed ‘Haunted House’, Clinton attack featuring Miss Universe was months in the making email shows, Clinton ally helped fund campaign of key FBI officials wife, Duck vs. Trump: Undercover video shows Clinton Campaign coordination on protests, Trump details 7-point plan to ‘Protect American jobs’.

Between WikiLeaks and Project Veritas, there has been a lot of information coming out regarding the DNC and the Clinton Campaign’s connection to a couple organizations that have promoted violence at Trump rallies, voter fraud and promoting the DNC narrative in the media. WikiLeaks revealed that CNN had given debate questions to the DNC in advance. News organizations were clearing stories through the DNC before publishing them. It has been clearly shown that there was a direct connection between the riots in Chicago where a Trump rally was cancelled where people were injured including two Chicago Police Officers and these organizations being directed by the DNC and the Hillary Campaign.

None of this has really made it to the major news outlets except for FOX. CNN did some reporting on the videos but raised more questions on the validity of them and the producer of the undercover footage. A quick look at the headlines shows a clear and obvious difference on how the Clinton campaign is covered and the Trump campaign. If it was not for social media and online news organizations, any news on Trump would all be negative and any news on Clinton would be all positive.

The mainstream media does not appear to be happy about the WikiLeaks email dumps nor the Project Veritas videos. These two groups seem to be doing actual journalism and news reporting. Back during the Bush administration, WikiLeaks revealed truths about WMD’s and the press was all over it. Now that WikiLeaks has uncovered corruption within the Clinton and DNC camps, the press is all of a sudden cautious on the validity of the information. They are even supporting the “Russia did it” narrative directly from the DNC and Clinton Campaign.

The Media’s reaction to the Project Veritas’ videos is much like the undercover Planned Parenthood videos. Because it goes against the agenda that they, as a whole, seem to support, instead of using these undercover videos as a springboard to do their own investigations, they instead, try to discredit the producers of the videos and claim that they are over-edited to sway the viewer. This is of course is what the mainstream media does all the time by cherry-picking the stories that they report on that DO support their underlying agenda.

I believe that the mainstream media has abused their power to inform the masses by pushing their own agenda as the correct way of things. How about you just report the news? Report both sides. Good and bad. And if there is a real story to chase down, chase it down. No matter where it leads. For our democracy to truly work, we need an honest Press. We as voters, need to be truly informed to be able to direct our country in the right direction.

Where are the Woodward and Bernsteins? The Walter Cronkites? I swear it has been a good 30 years since the Media has NOT pushed their own agendas. Does the Mainstream Media even do their own investigative journalism anymore? Or do they just report what is handed to them once it’s been approved by all involved parties?

The Media has given the Democrats a free pass and as a result, the Democrats have become more and more corrupt and deceitful knowing that they will not be called out. If a “conservative” news organization reports something negative on a Democrat, the Mainstream Media circles the wagons to protect them. This is not their job! Their job is to inform the people and to keep the government honest.

If this election has proven anything it is how broken the Mainstream Media is. These fledgling news organizations are the new hope for truth in journalism. The readers and viewers cannot take the headlines at face value. We must look into each story deeper and use various sources to get to the truth and not ignore the truth, even if it is contrary to our own agendas. The manipulation and conflicts of interests in what news is reported has gotten completely out of hand and needs to be reined in.

The truth is the truth. Facts are facts. When a news organization ignores the facts in order to bend the truth, they are no longer worthy to be a real source of information.

 

-Sean