The Media Elite Vs. The Average American

I think America's media elite have forgotten that we in America can and often do go to the same sources they do to get our news. Give you an example: the people in the journalism world who daily genuflect to the news columns of the Washington Post and the editorial pages of the new York Times reported what they considered the highlights of President Bush's speech to the United Nations; then they took great pains to interpret that speech for us, telling us in detail what they think he meant to say; and then they hunted people who opposed what the president said and gave them equal time (they call that balanced coverage).

These media elite forget, or maybe don't want to admit, that we can hop on the internet and read the President's speech in its entirety. They probably don't know that many of us read, every week, the Economist out of London ... a publication that does a better job reporting world news than any American news source I know.

The big, national media elite are, however, missing one element of the news, and that is what Americans are thinking right here at the grass roots level. How do you reckon Dan Rather would handle the phone calls Martha Zoller gets on her local radio show? Or what do you reckon Peter Jennings would do if he went down to Clore's Restaurant for coffee after he had written an editorial in our local daily paper? I think the average American is a lot more informed and intelligent than the media elite give us credit for.

This is Gordon Sawyer, and may the wind always be at your back.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/9/189775