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75. I went into college as a Journalism major and graduated as a journalism major, but I never had any illusions of desiring to be a journalist. 🙂

I actually hate it when people attack ‘the media.’ I’ve probably stated why in the past, but for those of you too lazy to click on links, I’ll summarize my previous position here:

There is no singular ‘media.’ Media refers to many individual mediums. It’s a form of mass communication: it’s a tool to reach people. As a tool, it seems silly to accuse it of being biased or sensationalistic. I think what people mean when they attack ‘the media’ is ‘the press,’ which is a set of journalists, pundits, politicians, operatives, and specialists that devote themselves to a particular trade.

That’s generally been the reason I hate it when people attack ‘the media.’ Because by doing so, they assume that the media is one unified entity, whereas in reality it is dozens of organizations that are all influenced by events and each other.

Jon Stewart thinks about the media as a bunch of six year olds playing soccer. They all huddle to the ball and kick it around a bit, then when someone kicks it away, they all run after it. He thinks it’s ‘scandal driven.’ Which it is.

My point, and it’s a small one, is that I want people to stop attacking ‘the media,’ because it will never change if we don’t start saying what we mean.

My solution is the simple, obvious one. Instead of attacking the media, we should attack individuals and shows. How soon would media coverage change if people would say stuff like, “this isn’t helped by scandal-driven shows like AC360, Countdown, and the O’Reilly Factor.”

In other words: ‘media’ has no accountability. You can attack it all day long and nothing will change. But if you pick and choose various members of the media in order to point out particular aspects that you don’t approve of, wouldn’t that inspire change?

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75. I went into college as a Journalism major and graduated as a journalism major, but I never had any illusions of desiring to be a journalist. 🙂 I actually hate it when people attack ‘the media.’ I’ve probably stated why in the past, but for those of you too lazy to click on links,…