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Friday, February 10, 2012

How powerful media COULD be

Some weeks ago, the CBS show "60 Minutes" did a 20 minute segment on our US Congress and their individual ability to trade in stocks with "insider information." So what happened next? Nearly immediately, the President mentioned creating a law prohibiting it and now, just a few weeks later, Congress has created just such a law, making that kind of thing illegal. Finally, our representatives can't benefit any more than they already do from being in Washington. Just like that, nearly. This is evidence to me of a couple things. First, it shows, as the title says, just what, exactly, COULD happen if we truly did have an engaged, working, searching media in washington and across the country--from Washington, DC to every state house and every major city in the nation. I've written here before about how our own Kansas City Star occasionally--but not nearly frequently enough--researches important, piercing articles about our governments, either city, county or state. Here, CBS News rather "blew the lid" off a dirty little Washington secret and made some change. In the following weeks, however, they did articles on truffles, for pity's sake and turned back into an 'infotainment" source instead of maintaining higher, more important standards. Even now, if you go to the CBS "60 Minutes" website (link below), you'll find it difficult, if not impossible, to find the video from their insider trading segment. I know I couldn't find it. To actually find the video, I had to go to YouTube. You'd think CBS would be proud--very proud--to have both come up with that story and made change in Congress and the nation. On the contrary, they seem rather ashamed of it. They've buried it on their site. I think it's easy to assume that they don't want to be "too controversial" for the Senators and Representatives in Washington as they want them as "good friends" and on their side. They don't want the people in Washington to see them as "enemies." So here's evidence of how the old, big networks could help the people and nation get better government. The fact is, it likley isn't going to happen. CBS and the other networks will "lay low" and continue to give us pap and, again, "infortainment" instead of hard news about our government, our officials and the corporations that run this country. In the meantime, we have to go to other, harder sources for good, dependable information. I believe better sources for this information will arise if we demand it, as we must. Links: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/us/politics/house-passes-bill-banning-insider-trading-by-members-of-congress.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha24; http://finance.yahoo.com/news/house-passes-insider-trading-bill-153829455.html; http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml

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