Ron Burgundy, Where Are You?

I am going to vent about the most evil profession in the world.  No, I am not talking about politics; although that is a very close second.  The most evil, manipulative industry in America is the media.  The American media routinely lies and attempts to brainwash its audience in a ruthless manor, with apparently no remorse.  They are just as corrupt, if not more so, than our elected officials in Washington. 

What happened?  It didn’t use to be like this.  The American media used to be a very honorable profession who always tried to give its audience a complete, unbiased report on whatever story was making headlines.  No stone would remain unturned to “get the scoop” on a big story.  They also chose to do the right thing and not report many stories if it would tarnish a legacy or was in bad taste. 

For example, Babe Ruth was a womanizing drunk who used tobacco and got into trouble routinely.  The media knew this, yet they didn’t report it.  Millions of Americans looked up to the Babe for his amazing, inhuman ability to hit a baseball.  This is what the media reported.  Babe was also very friendly and extremely generous, so portraying him as the hero people wanted him to be was relatively easy for the American media.  It was only after his death that stories about his wild antics and late nights surfaced. 

Another example is how the media portrayed Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  FDR was a beloved President.  Many people believe his “New Deal” is what caused the Great Depression to finally end.  Evidence of how beloved he was is proved by the fact that he is the only President to get elected to more than two terms.  Not only did he win four presidential elections, he won them all very convincingly.  He averaged getting almost 92% of the electoral votes during his four elections, including getting an unheard of 98.5% in both 1936 and 1940.  While FDR was a great President, he might have never even been elected had the media made a big deal about him being in a wheelchair.  FDR had contracted polio as at the age of 39 and was stricken to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.  Out of respect, the media never mentioned this in their papers.  When FDR was in public, the news cameras only showed him from the waist up.  It’s a sad fact that most people would not have voted for FDR had they known he was paralyzed.  It portrays weakness.  America was in a very dark time; in the midst of the Great Depression, and later on during his presidency, a World War.  The country needed a powerful leader, one to lead them through these difficult and trying times.  FDR proved to be that man.  It’s a credit to the media that he was elected in the first place.

The media does do some good.  The main purpose of the media is to get important messages out to the public and, during wartime, to instill patriotism in the American People; make them believe that America is right and the evil we are fighting will be defeated.  They are stellar at both of these.

So why is the media so corrupt, and what caused it?  How did this once noble profession sink so low in the eyes of so many?  The answer is POWER!  The media has way too much power.  They are how Americans get their news, and form their opinions.  If a newspaper or TV station doesn’t want America to know about something or someone, it simply doesn’t report it.  It can make a person’s career, or destroy it if it doesn’t like what the individual stand for.  It’s a sad fact that in this age of Sony Playstations, Blockbuster Hollywood movies and reality shows, fewer and fewer people are actually reading books and doing their own research to find out about a topic.  In an increasingly fast-paced world, people often don’t have time to do this.  To keep from being completely ignorant of world affairs they watch the news.   They expect an accurate report on issues facing their world today.  This is a fair request I think, being that the issue at hand affects them in one way or another.  Too bad this is now how the news works nowadays.

The media carefully scripts and reports stories in ways that severely skew the facts of the issue.  They do this purposely, to shape and mold the opinion of their audience.  It’s like they are mad scientists; down in a dark laboratory, conducting experiments on the audience, aka “their monster”.  They fill our heads up with lies and evil thoughts, and then, when it’s all over, they marvel at their creation.  They might as well be writing a blockbuster movie with how some of these stories are reported, as some of the news stories I have been suckered into watching would win an Oscar under the Fantasy Genre.

I can’t completely the media on the way some stories are reported.  After all, reporters are people too, and they have bills to pay.  The way to ensure that their mortgage gets paid is to make sure they have a job.  The way to ensure they have a job is to report stories in a way that people will be interested in it.  If people are interested in a story they will take time out of their busy day and follow it.  The more interesting a story is, the more likely they are to request more on the topic.  Requesting another story on the issue is what keeps reporters working.  The best ways to get people interested in a topic is to appeal to their emotions; especially primal emotions.  That’s why the two things that sell the best, no matter what we’re talking about, are sex and fear.  Sex is used more to sell products, but fear, hands down, is used as a tool by the media to generate public interest, and create hysteria.  This means their ratings will be high, and everyone gets a bigger paycheck.

I will discuss examples of very popular news stories that were blown completely out of proportion by our friends in the news field.  They did this for ratings, politics, and/or to follow through with an agenda.  I assure you reporting the truth was never part of this agenda. 

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The first news story I will mention is that famous Rodney King incident back in 1991-1992.  Everyone should know about this.  For those who don’t, Rodney King is a black man who was beaten by a bunch of LA Cops on the side of the road.  This incident triggered the LA Riots of 1992.  King’s beating was caught on tape.  A trial ensued; where the officers accused of beating him were found not guilty.  Outraged, many residents of Los Angeles went out into the streets and started a mass riot.  Over 2,300 people were injured, 54 people died, Over 3,000 places of business were either robbed or vandalized, or both.  There were in excess of 700 fires set.  All told, it caused a billion dollars in damage.  Understandably, it was one of highest rated news stories in history.  Millions were glued to their television and newspaper, reading about the latest developments in the story. 

The news media made it out to be a story about four racist cops who beat King simply because he was black.  That’s how it was reported.  The video of him getting beaten certainly fanned the flames in this very emotional case.  The video that was released and shown on the news thousands of times showed Mr. King getting beaten mercilessly by 4 white police officers, while other cops on the scenejust stood around and watched.  An honest news organization with a moral compass would have waited to release the video, until all the facts were received.  Obviously, this didn’t happen.  People saw it and were understandably outraged, as they only knew what the news showed them; a black guy getting beaten to a pulp by 4 “peace officers” for no reason.  What the public didn’t know, because it wasn’t reported, is that Mr. King was drunk off his ass and had ingested drugs that night.  A cop car pulled behind him because Mr. King was speeding.  He refused to pull over.  His reasoning is that a DUI would violate his parole, which he was on for both  robbery and assault.  Apparently he didn’t think getting into a high speed chase would violate his parole.  Mr. King and the officers got into a high speed pursuit.  At one point they were going in close to 100 mph.  The chase involved many police cruisers; even a helicopter.  When finally pulled over, he refused to exit the vehicle at first. Once finally outside, Mr. King refused to get down, despite being told numerous times by the officers who pulled him over.  He antagonized the cops, even grabbing one of their asses in defiance.  When he was, at long last, forced down by two officers, he got violent and pushed them off his back.  He was completely out of control at this point. 

The countdown starts for the LA riots.

Many people think he was high on PCP at the time, which makes a person impervious to pain and gives them increased strength.  This theory makes a lot of sense, as Mr. King got up and then got into a scuffle with a 3rd officer.  Finally, to try and calm him down, he was tasered by one of the officers.  Amazingly, he got right back up again and had to be tasered a second time.  It was only after he got back up AGAIN, and charged the officer who had tasered him, that Mr. King was hit with a baton for the first time.  This was just to take him down.  It was an act of self-defense.  Unfortunately, the video only showed the last 1:15 o this almost hour long melee.

The story was all over the news.  People all over the world were outraged at the LAPD, and its racist officers.  The 4 officers were on trial for their jobs.  Instead of reporting that Mr. King was an ex-con who was speeding down residential streets and resisting arrest and assaulting police officers; the media instead just kept showing the video.  What was the average person to think?  The trial wasn’t televised, but to fan the flame some more, the media reported on the case daily, cherry picking what they included in their report, of course.  The media’s agenda in this case was clear from the start.  It was to be a trial pitting the racist police department against a poor, innocent black man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Don’t get me wrong; King’s much checkered past did come out in news reports, but most of the time it was immediately followed by a video of his beating.  The news agencies’ were smart.  They knew that if it was reported on as just another case involving police officers using excessive force, it wouldn’t be nearly as big a ratings success as if they shaped and molded the public’s opinion into it being a trail about racial prejudice in the LAPD. 

This strategy worked, and the news agencies’ made tons of money in ad revenue.  When the trial was finally over, millions of people, both in the U.S. and abroad, anxiously awaited the decision.  When the officers were found not guilty, blacks everywhere- especially in Los Angeles, were outraged. Rightfully so, I would be upset too if my team lost the big game.  The media had brainwashed the public into thinking it was a case of black vs. white, rather than right vs. wrong.  In protest, and to let go of a lot of anger, people stormed the streets of Los Angeles, destroying everything in sight; making downtown LA look like Kosovo.  All this happened in protest of the Rodney King verdict.  The media is 100% to blame for this.  Even though the guy who filmed the video and sent it in to news agencies should be ashamed of him/herself.  The blame should still be placed squarely on the media, as they did not have to show this biased film thousands of times, shaping the opinions of everyone who watched it.  Unfortunately, this is not the last time the media has turned a very serious trial into a race war.  This one was just the appetizer.  The main course is coming!

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Another major incident that the media had a very big hand in was the East Coast/West Coast rap war of the mid-1990’s.  This war involved the two biggest hip hop stars in the world: Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G.  The fact that the two were former great friends who had a falling out made this a story fit for the big time, and the huge ratings that came with it.  Feuds in music happen all the time, especially in rap.  The rap battle is the foundation of hip-hop.  It’s how hip-hop started.  Two guys spit out rhymes, ripping on the other guy, in an attempt to find out who is better..  The rhymes don’t have to be true, as long as people enjoy them.  The war between Biggie and Tupac could have ended quickly with little incident instead of ended tragically; in the process robbing two mothers of their sons, and depriving the world of another 20 years of great music that these two would no doubt have released. 

The night Tupac was shot for the first time is what started it all.  No one knew who shot him, as the perpetrators got away.  Accusations flew around about who was responsible.  While it was true that Tupac was going upstairs to see Biggie at the time of the shooting, no evidence has ever come out saying Biggie had anything at all to do with it.  Why the Hell would the Notorious B.I.G. want Tupac dead?  Tupac had taken Biggie under his wing and taught him everything he knew about rap.  Biggie looked up to Tupac, both as a friend and a mentor.  While the two were the biggest rap stars in the world, there was no need for jealousy.  There was definitely enough money to go around. 

Biggie and Tupac in happier times

The media, of course, took full advantage of this story.  They are the ones who started mentioning Biggie’s name as a possible suspect.  While he was questioned by police, that doesn’t mean anything.  Police always question everyone present at the time a crime is committed.  It’s how they start a case.  They interview everyone, and eliminate those who had nothing to do with it.  If you notice, Biggie was never called back in for a second interview.  The media, in yet another attempt to brainwash the American Public, mentioned Biggie’s name relentlessly when reporting on the Tupac shooting.  While they did not accuse him, the fact that they always mentioned his name and “suggested” he played a part in it made people think.  That’s all it takes sometimes, just place an idea in someone’s head and then watch it slowly become more popular, until it eventually becomes public knowledge.  This was a gold mine for the media. 

This story was ripe to be manipulated; for many different reasons.  It involved the two biggest rappers in the world, who worked for warring production companies.  Also, one was from New York and one from Los Angeles- the two biggest cities in the U.S.  They were ex-friends, and the older served as a mentor to the younger.  One was a gangster rapper, the newest style of hip-hop; the other rapped the old school way.  Tupac rapped fast, Biggie rapped slow.  There were countless ways to spin this, and the media managed to hit on all of them, filling the public’s mind up with poison in doing so. 

I’m not saying it was all the media’s fault.  I’m sure Suge Knight, the head of Death Row Records at the time, knew that the feud meant publicity, and publicity meant money. Knight was a very smart businessman.  I’m sure he milked it for all it was worth.  I’m sure he poisoned Tupac’s mind in suggesting that Biggie shot him.  Why would Tupac believe any different?  Suge had just bailed him out of jail, and was making him millions of dollars.  The media seemed to agree Biggie was guilty, too.  So, it was game on after that.  The feud was born.

For the rest of the time they were alive, and even now, after they are dead, you cannot mention one without the other.  They are forever linked; for better or for worse.  The media did their best to make this the story of the year, pulling out all the stops to keep this story on the front page.  Eventually, the feud got so intense that people had to choose sides.  You were either a Biggy fan or a Tupac fan; not both.  The constant news reporting was slinging propaganda to make one side hate the other.  The two record labels took that ball and ran with it, and then it really started getting ugly.  Hit ‘Em Up, a song released by Tupac calling out Biggie, came out and that was it.  There was absolutely no chance the two could be friends again.  Biggie came out with Who Shot Ya shortly thereafter, which most people think was a diss on Tupac being shot.  Biggie’s camp denied this.  Whether true or not, it definitely didn’t make things any better.  The media played all of it up, for ratings.  Once Tupac was shot again- fatally this time, everyone assumed Biggie had a role in it.  Truth is, people were so passionate about this war because of the media that anyone could have pulled the trigger.  The media, of course, blamed Biggie, and, for the rest of his life, he was a marked man.  Everyone knew he was going to die.  It was just a matter of time. 

The media pulled out all the stops in this war.  They succeeded in turning East Coast against West Coast, old school against new school, and divided a once united rap industry into two factions; filled with hatred towards each other.  After their death, the uninformed public assumed that all rappers were gangsters and its popularity suffered.  Rap sales were down for years.  Why did all this tragedy happen?  So MTV and the networks could raise their advertising rates, that’s why.

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Another story blown out of proportion was the Kobe-Shaq Feud of the early 21^st Century.  The LA Lakers had just won three championships in a row and were most popular sports team in America.  The two biggest stars in the league happened to play on the same team- Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal.  Disagreements between teammates happen all the time, its natural.  Spending more time with your teammates than you do with your wife will cause some heated arguments.  Most of the time, they go unnoticed.  Not when it involves the two biggest athletes in the sport, arguably the world, however.  Shaquille was as popular an athlete as there has been in America since Jordan was at his peak.  He had a few movies, a couple rap albums and countless endorsements to his credit.  Kobe was the new kid in town.  He was just making a name for himself.  Him and Shaq were complete opposites.  Kobe was Laurel to Shaq’s Hardy.  Shaq was the goofy, fun-loving monster who won by running over his opponent.  He was old school.  Kobe was the cocky, arrogant, all-business sharpshooter who preferred to go around his opponent.   He was the new school. 

Even though they were very different, they worked really well together.  Kobe was Yin to Shaq’s Yang.  For those 3 championship years, they were on top of the world.  With success comes popularity; before long everything these guys did was in the news.  The media, especially the tabloids, jumped on the bandwagon, that’s when things started going bad.

Shaq and Kobe during happier times

When every little thing you do is reported, and your mobbed by fans everywhere you go, it can get annoying.  It can also cause one’s ego to get out of control. Shaq, while a laid back guy by nature, had an enormous ego.  With what he has accomplished, it’s a well-deserved inflated ego, but, nonetheless, it can be destructive, especially when the ego of someone else on his own team was as high as his.  Shaq was always the go-to guy throughout his career, ever since he was big enough to dribble a basketball.  He was the unquestioned leader of the Lakers.  The media loved him not only for his basketball ability but for his antics.  Everything he touched turned to gold. 

As Kobe started getting more recognition, Shaq felt threatened.  Shaq was always the one in the magazines and on commercials.  The media turned Kobe into a bonified superstar, so his popularity was almost on the same level as that of Shaq.  This couldn’t have made Shaq feel good.  He liked winning, but of course he would get a little jealous, especially when he has been “The Man” everywhere he has ever played. For the first few years, it wasn’t a problem. As Kobe was comfortable being the second scoring option on the team. 

As time went by, though, Bryant’s head got bigger and bigger.  He was starting to believe all the talk in the media that he was just as good, if not better, thank Shaq.  He started to believe all those who said that he should step out from under Shaq’s shadow.  Kobe started to overstep his boundaries in terms of his role on the team; speaking out more and criticizing Shaq for poor performance.  If you have two huge egos on the same team, bad things are bound to happen sooner or later and they did.  Like with Biggie and Tupac, the media tried to pit the two against one another. 

They used any small disagreement between the two or public criticism as fuel to get this fire going.  After awhile, one was always asked about the other to the point where it got really annoying for both them, and us.  They might not have been friends, but that’s fine.  They weren’t required to like each other.  The more the media reported on this Kobe vs. Shaq non-story, the bigger the gap between the players got. It’s very destructive to a team when everyday in the papers or on the news is a story where one of your star players is criticizing the other one.  I can only imagine what it did to the locker room.  Point is, the media turned a small, insignificant cat fight the two had into a feud that ultimately broke up the team and ended prematurely what could have been a dynasty that could still now be pumping out titles. 

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The media’s biggest masterpiece in terms of shaping public opinion, however, was the OJ Trial, hands down.  This was the Mona Lisa of manipulating public opinion.  The media managed to turn a horrific double murder- where two young people lost their lives, into a war of white vs. black.  Yes, the trial of OJ Simpson was portrayed as nothing more than the sequel of the Rodney King trial.  This makes sense, as almost all blockbuster movies gets a sequel.  Unlike most sequels, however, this one actually surpassed the original.  Millions of people were glued to their TV from the outset of this story; during the famous Bronco chase, until the end over a year later- when the jury foreman read those memorable words “Not Guilty”. 

Instead of focusing on the actual evidence of the case, the news outlets instead focused on the pure racial components.  It was easy enough to pull off.  LA was still unsettled and angry over the Rodney King verdict, and many people were sure the LAPD was full of racists.  The media mastered the formula from that famous trial a few years ago.  Play up the innocence of the black man, and focus on showing evidence insinuating the racism of the white man.  It worked even better this time. The OJ Trial became the trial of the century.  In an unprecedented move, the judge actually opened court proceedings to reporters.  The whole trial was on TV.  The trial of the man convicted of brutally slaying two people had become America’s most popular reality show.  I wonder how Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown’s family felt about the trial of their child’s killer being turned into a media circus.  It’s disrespect to say the least. 

The OJ Fiasco

The worst part was at the end, when the verdict was read.  The media had so brainwashed people to think it was a trial of black vs. white that when the verdict was read, hundreds of thousands of black people celebrated, screaming “We Won!!!”….

Did I miss something?  What exactly did they win?  Did Ed McMahon show up at the doorstep of each one of their houses with a check from Publisher’s Clearinghouse?  I think not.  OJ’s guilt was actually portrayed as an afterthought in this fiasco.  It was primarily portrayed by the media as blacks as a people triumphing over their white oppressors.  Blacks had gotten their revenge for Rodney King over the white racists who oppressed them.

The media had succeeded in fooling a whole race of people into believing that their life was somehow better now that a black man was found innocent.  It’s preposterous to think that.  The truth is, that after an hour or so of jubilation, these people went back to their dead-end jobs, so they get back to worrying not about whether the juice would beat the rap, but whether or not they could meet rent this month; or if they would be able to feed their families.  Did they maybe think OJ was going to pay all their bills if he was found innocent? 

Why do people put so much energy into following stories like this?  There are plenty more productive things to do with their time, like spending time with their families.  They should be reading to their kids, not worrying about whether some washed-up, millionaire Uncle Tom did or did not slay his ex-wife and her friend.  The media truly has no shame.

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Another shameful display of corrupting public opinion was after the attacks of 911.  The American “un-biased” media got the public into such frenzy about the terrorists that people started acting irrationally and paranoid that any Arab they saw was a terrorist.  Poor people of Middle-Eastern descent found themselves being terrorized and ridiculed by  an uninformed American public, who had been brainwashed by the media into thinking all Arabs were bad.  These people had moved here from their home country thousands of miles away to seek opportunity.  They had left their friends, family, and in many cases, all their belongings, in their old country, to seek a new life here to chase a dream or escape tyranny.  What did we do to reward their bravery?  We treated them like they were the fat, acne covered kid with braces in the schoolyard and we were the schoolyard bully.  Because of the media’s portrayal of the evil of Islam, we persecuted these people worse than they were persecuted in their own country.  Why?  Because they went to a different church than we did??!!  Truly sad.

The media was, and still is, great at instilling patriotism into the American People.  It lets the public know that America is the greatest, most powerful country in the world and it will triumph over all.  While it is important to have the public support the war, the media sometimes takes this too far.   During World War II, anti-Japanese feeling got so out of control that thousands of Japanese-Americans were forced to live in internment camps.  They were taken from their homes and made to live like prisoners for years, despite the fact that their only crime was that they happened to be of Japanese descent.  These were mostly American citizens mind you, not Japanese tourists who were only in American for a week or so.  Hundreds of thousands of people of Japanese, including countless women and children, were ordered to leave their homes and report to these camps.  In most cases they were literally only allowed to bring the clothes on their backs.  This paranoia and racial hatred among U.S. citizens was inspired and caused by the American media.   In an attempt to instill  patriotism and spread propaganda, the media demonized the Japanese to the point where they couldn’t even walk outside in many places, for fear they would be beaten, or even killed, by overzealous “patriots” who wanted nothing more than to beat a Japanese person “for their country”.  In the Governments defense, this relocation legislation was necessary in some cases, as anti-Japanese sentiment in the country was out of control. 

A country ordering many of its citizens out of their homes and into special “camps”, where they are separated from most of their loved ones and  forced to live like prisoners, for no reason than they happened to be of the wrong nationality.  Tragic, yet oddly very familiar.  Another country did this, too.  It was during the same war as a matter of fact.  Does the name holocaust ring any bells?  While it is possible some racist simple-minded fool would have beaten a Japanese person just because of their heritage, the media certainly helped this cause. 

In closing, I would like to apologize to all the honest journalists out there.  I did not mean to insult you or take away from all the hard work you put in day in and day out to report an honest news story.  Unfortunately, the final say in what is reported and how its reported goes to the editor.  These people are the bad apples.  Still, I can’t entirely blame them, either.  They need ratings just like everyone else or they are out of a job. 

Fact is, the ultimate blame has to be placed on the chief officers of all the various news organizations.  They are the ones who ultimately benefit from this mis-reporting.  It is they who need to be scolded and ridiculed.  With any luck, maybe a story will come out, demonizing them for all their atrocities.  Maybe the American citizens will be so outraged that they have been taken advantage of and betrayed for so long that public outrage will make the U.S. pass a law ordering them to report to internment camps.  That would be nice.

What’s worse than how the media cherry picks what to report is the stories they choose to report.  The news used to be cheery, upbeat stories about local heroes or local events.  Now, the news only reports sad, depressing things whose purpose is to scare people.  Stories about murders, robberies and disease outbreaks are always all over the news.  All these negative things have been pounded into people’s heads for so long that its affecting how they act.  People are more much more paranoid nowadays; are increasingly finding themselves isolated from their community because they choose not to trust anyone.  Paranoid people act irrationally.  They tend to act first, think second.  Not coincidentally, U.S. has one of the highest violent crime rates in the civilized world.  This despite the fact that many other countries have more gun-toting citizens than America  does.  The media uses fear to push their agenda and increase ad revenue.  The more scared you are the more you will watch the news.  Stories of terrorist attacks and sexual predators in your neighborhood are sure to keep you glued to the TV set.

Who can forget all the “epidemics” the media created out of thin air in hopes of scaring people and push their agenda.  Journalists cause widespread panic with stories about sicknesses like: Mad Cow Disease, Sars, Bird Flu, Anthrax attacks, Africanized Killer Bees, and many others.  They claim these will all cause a massive death toll, and compare them to the Black Plague or the Small Pox outbreak of centuries past.  These killer outbreaks were supposed to completely take our country over and cause millions of deaths.  What happened to all these “must watch” stories you ask?  Well, to my knowledge, not one person has been infected with mad cow disease other than the character Denny on that TV show Boston Legal.  SARS affected a few people in Toronto, Canada, as well as a few other areas, but the media blew it out of proportion by saying it was a huge epidemic.  It was a small regional alert at best, not a huge national scare the media made it out to be.  In terms of the Anthrax “scare”, it was mailed to a few newscasters and a select random group of people after the 911 attacks.  No one was hurt and the threat ended soon after it started.  Nonetheless, widespread panic ensued.  People were actually afraid to open their mail, in fear that it would be covered in Anthrax.  It got so bad that there was even a public outcry to have the band Anthrax change their name, despite the fact that the band was around 20 years before this “epidemic”.  Lastly, the invasion of the “Killer Bees” was reported by the media as being a sure thing.  They were supposed to enter the U.S. through Texas and Arizona, and then work their way north until the whole country was overrun and every American life was in danger.  The media predicted thousands of deaths.  Where are these bees now?  I don’t ever remember one person dying from a killer bee sting.  You know we would have heard about it because t would have been all over the news.

The last example I will discuss is the Y2K scare of 1999.  Everyone was frantic because of the media, that all the computers were going to crash and we were going back to the dark ages.  Everyone was in on this scam:  TV stations, newspapers, radio, periodicals.  They all warned that the world was going to end on New Years Day in 2000.  This fear arose because, at that time, every computer only had a 2-digit year column for the date.  They said when the millennium flipped back to the year 00, the computers would not know what to do and would shut down.  This, they said, would kill millions and have everyone in the world living like the Amish; with no technology, no electricity, and no hope. 

The problem sounded scary, but in actuality it was a simple reprogramming job.  A technician just had to go in and change the number of columns for the year.  It was a hassle, being that there were so many computers, but by no stretch of the imagination was it ever considered dangerous.  Because of their dishonest reporting, the media had hundreds of thousands of people believing them.  In the weeks prior to the millennium, millions of dollars were spent on canned goods, bottled water, batteries and flash lights.  After the calendar flipped and nothing happened, these people were left with millions of dollars in canned goods in their home and nowhere to put them.

One last point I will make is this.  The American media is always in search of the next big story.  This is a very stressful job.  Because of 24-hour news stations and the internet, news is a 24/7/365 business.  If you even blink, you might miss something.  All news outlets cover the same topics, so it is imperative that each outlet create its own story within a story, to maintain its viewers.  This is why so many things that used to be trivial are now news worthy.  These news outlets need something to fill the empty space.  I believe that this is part of the reason why the media has increased their reporting on racial slurs and other mis-speaks that are made by those in the public eye. Every public figure or celebrity who does or says anything wrong is immediately ridiculed.  Oftentimes, this 2-second mishap costs them their job; like in the case of Don Imus.  Even if they don’t lose their job, the person who says the inappropriate thing is ridiculed mercilessly.  They are ridiculed because the media reports what they did or said or wrote 50 times a day.  In reports on the story, the news organization will literally interview 100 people to see how they feel about it.  99 can say they are indifferent.  As long as one person is outraged, they have themselves a story!  As long as they have that one person, the news  organization can say there is public outcry over the statement.  With around the clock reporting about how wrong this statement was, this one person who actually disagrees with the statement can quickly turn into 100, then 1000.  Before you know it, there is a national movement for their job.  People are such sheep nowadays.  Think for yourselves, don’t let the corrupt media think for you.  This country is full of racists.  Our founding fathers were all slave owning racists for God’s sake.  A person is entitled to believe anything he or she wants.  If they hate Jews, so be it.  As long as they don’t commit violent acts against them I am fine with it, and so should you.  This country was founded upon the principle of everyone having free speech, and I believe that.  If someone says something you don’t agree with, don’t fucking listen to it!  That’s the beauty of America, we have the option of changing the channel! 

The fact is, American news organizations have a responsibility to their viewers to report an unbiased,unbiased view on an issue.  They have failed miserably at this.  We have been sold out!  It is due time this mass ignorance is stopped.  My generation is going to start running things in a few years, and I desperately want us to succeed.  We are about to be handed a world in dire straits!  It is not too late to fix it.  Education is the only way to do this.  Please, put down that video game