By Walt Zlotow
I speak as an American.
There are critical issues that the American mainstream media must cover to keep the public informed. But they don’t. Issues where news is scant include:
- Continued death and destruction of Palestinians in Gaza and their homeland.
- America on the cusp of war with Iran that may blow up the Middle East.
- Ukraine being systematically destroyed by Russia.
- Cutting off oil to degrade the Cuban people and force regime change.
- Obliterating small, unarmed boats off Venezuela and the violent kidnapping of its president to score political points back home.
- Refusal of the Trump administration to release the Epstein files to bring justice to Epstein’s sex trafficking victims.
- Refusal of the Trump administration to investigate the brutalization – even the homicides of innocent citizens at the hands of ICE agents – in Democratic cities.
These just scratch the surface of what mainstream news must cover in depth to foster an informed electorate. But mainstream news is not about informing the public. It is about entertaining the public to bring additional vast riches to the wealthy tycoons who own the media.
Case in point is the lengthy coverage of the February 1 Nancy Guthrie kidnapping in Arizona. Had Guthrie not been the mother of NBC news host Savannah Guthrie, the kidnapping would have gone unmentioned as the other roughly 2,000 violent crimes committed on Americans that day.
Of course, any crime involving a celebrity will be mentioned on mainstream news. But the Guthrie coverage was both lengthy and largely uninformative while it pushed infinitely more important stories aside.
The other night while watching an important piece on congressional wrangling over release of the Epstein files to bring justice to Epstein’s victims, MSNBC dramatically interrupted coverage with BREAKING NEWS. Why? To spend about 20 minutes to tell we clueless viewers nothing of value. What was the breaking news? A “person of interest” was detained for questioning. That was it. A reporter rushed to the investigation scene to repeat over and over that no information was being released. All the while the door cam video of the spooky masked man at the door was repeated on an endless loop. As they say in Hollywood… “That’s entertainment.”
This worthless use of 20 minutes could have been handled in 20 seconds. “A person of interest has been detained in the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping. No further information has been released.”
Mainstream news coverage of important stories is either non-existent or so superficial it’s worthless.
Today, legions of Americans lament how 77 million voters can elect an authoritarian con man who, among other crimes, unleashed masked thugs on American streets to inflict senseless violence in the name of law enforcement. Spend a little time watching mainstream news and you’ll know how.
Walt Zlotow, Glen Ellyn IL
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Yes I wonder why?
As a dual citizen (British/Australian) I cannot, for the life of me, wonder why those 77 million could elect a person of with so little intelect, anf to such a high office.
The only thing I can emagine is that the USA is populated by many many more millions of very iliterate people.
Excuse my spelling I suffer from peripheral neuropathy (I can only chicken peck)
What has been very telling in the last forty-eight hours is the senate oversight committee trying to elicit information from Attorney General pam Bondi on the Epstein files and in particular the failure to prosecute the perpetrators of abuse against young women – remember that only one person has been charged and jailed and she is currently trading blows on what she will tell- Ghislaine Maxwell has pleaded the fifth against self-incrimination but will tell-all if granted clemency at which time we are told that she will exonerate Trump.
A group of the Epstein survivors were at the hearing, they were asked if they had been contacted by the Dept of justice, answer unanimous NO : they were asked if they had offered to provide testimony to the DoJ: answer unanimous YES; they were asked if their offer had been taken up ; answer, unanimous NO.
There is something very sick in the US justice system that the Dept of Justice will not investigate or prosecute this criminality.
Let us detach this nation from as much interaction with the USA as is possible, for it is totally untrustworthy, unreliable, insincere. Too many of the “pioneers” were runaways, disobedient narrowminded superstition drenched social defectives, like Trump’s lot. Scrapings, offcasts, outliers, unreliables, vicious, narrowminded primitives.., Yuk. USA history is potholed with slavery, theft, murder, indigenous crime and dispossession, occupations, plottings, humiliations, lies.
Interesting with Bondi- the dummy-spitting.
Bondi’s behaviour was appalling. Disgusting.
Trump, however, lauded her performance in one of his “War and Peace”-sized Truth Social posts. It was trademark Trump: childishly belittle the Democrats while praising corruption and idiocy.
Michael,
Have a look at https://x.com/meidastouch/status/2021656469008265717 and tell me that you disagree that Bondi was almost on the verge of having a breakdown. It’s all starting to pile up one her and a collapse is looming.
Take heart Walt …..you too can sample the American style media performance by watching the SKY LIES channel owned by our own ”Little Aussie Battler” …… Oops!! No More an Aussie?? So why is ownership of Australian media outlets allowed by foreigners??
Thanks, GL. My early morning ritual is to sit in front of the TV while having breakfast and watch MeidasTouch videos on YouTube.
Michael,
TV? What is this TV of which you speak? I vaguely remember a brain numbing device I called the One-Eyed God from about 20 years ago which one night I stopped worshipping. I picked it up and put it on the nature strip outside the place I was living in…oohh…that was a TV…how silly of me to forget the name of the mind destroyer. It sat there for two nights before someone saw it and took it.
By the time I turfed it out my viewing time was down to barely 1.5 hours a week. The advertising was being ruined by the almost endless bombardment of garbage excuses for TV programs (hm, I wonder if I have the wrong way around?).
But remember, Terry, the DOW was over 50,000 …