What can we do?

The questions we asked were tough and fair and appropriate and relevant and what you would expect to be asked in a presidential debate at this point.” – George Stephanopoulos. \nGeorge Stephanopoulos, respected national political reporter, defended his indefensible April 16 Democratic presidential debate moderating by suggesting that candidates should “expect” almost an hour of trivial and irresponsible hectoring from a political press bent on nabbing “gotcha!” moments.\nIn so doing, Stephanopoulos demonstrates everything wrong with our nation’s journalism and everything we must fix. In the first 45 minutes of the debate, a viewer would have seen nothing about Iraq, health care, the economy, education, infrastructure or international diplomacy – only trite garbage. It is, in fact, the same kind of trite garbage trotted out every election cycle: the Swift Boaters, John Edwards’ haircut, Obama’s bowling, Clinton’s laugh, Bush’s “guy I’d like to have a beer with,” Al Gore’s Internet “invention” and so on.\nI have been writing columns for the IDS since the fall of 2005, and my belief in the importance of my job and that of my colleagues has remained consistently strong. Now at the end of my tenure, however, I have never before been so utterly convinced of the contemporary laziness and irresponsibility of the professional press.\nAfter a week in which it was revealed that a secret meeting of top advisers approved by President Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and others detailed exactly which torture techniques the CIA could use on detainees, a LexisNexis search for “Bush AND torture” found 187 results. An otherwise identical search for “Obama AND bitter” revealed 1,000 results. \nLook back at Stephanopoulos’ words. Where are these supposedly “tough,” “fair” and “appropriate” questions for Bush or Rice? Should a candidate answer questions about flag pins, when Bush, Cheney and Rice are still running the White House? Instead of asking difficult questions, ABC News, hardly a lone offender, has shown how easy it is to run election-cycle reporting on the continuous fuel of perceived scandal. The national political press seems to suggest that ABC’s high ratings demonstrate that people actually care about the trivial nonsense rather than real issues. This misses the point entirely. Of course national policy discussions seem boring compared to national blood sport. The debate was even billed as “Obama vs. Clinton,” as if it were a boxing match rather than a political debate. The point of political journalism, however, should be to make important policy discussions accessible and meaningful for the average person.\nIf the “professional” journalists aren’t doing their jobs, it’s time to do ours. The broken press trumpeted the Iraq War and continues to peddle filth, while Americans have lost their trust in the media entirely. While so-called “professionals” may look down on us amateurs, it’s time we took our world into our hands.\nWhat can we do? Learn more, refuse to believe the media swill and build our own opinions. It’s the way to fight back against the condescending, cynical “journalists.” It’s the way we win back our country.