I finally watched “The Post” recently and this quote from the Supreme Court Ruling allowing the Post (and others) to publish the leaked Pentagon papers really stood out to me.
“In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.” (Judge Hugo Black, writing for the 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court majority that decided in favor of the press.)
Unfortunately, we have went off the rails in our media, in a search for profit, political favors and the latest “celebrity” cheating scandal, has led to “the governed” shoved aside and the press catering to “the governors”. That is what leads to massive layoffs at your local media source. It is easy to blame it on the internet and the new sources to get your news, but those popped up out of necessity.
For instance, you can read countless stories that the Steelworker running in the Democratic Primary to replace Paul Ryan and every bill he paid and was late on. To contrast that to our Governor and his massive credit card debt andstudent loan debt and it is very hard to find a story or mention of it except with bloggers and alternative media. (edit note: there are some mainstream media stories of Walker and his massive debt but those came from national press during his failed presidential run).
Another instance, Stormy Daniels, the porn star who made it big by having sex with The Donald three months after Baron was born, then taking a $130,000 payment to not tell anyone about it, was recently at the Madison area at Silk Exotic Gentleman’s Club. That led to a plethora of reporters heading to the strip club to cover this “important” story.
While it is great that the local media can say they sent their crack staff to a strip club, the unfortunate things is where they are not sending their staff.
Recently, the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD), recently had an important committee meeting regarding Student Resource Officers (SRO’s) in school. In this meeting, which turned into a circus, Dave Blaska showed up to speak to the importance of teacher unions and keeping police in our schools. Blaska was unfortunately shouted down by a group called Freedom, Inc.
I say unfortunate because I know that if you want to make a salient, logical point, it is very helpful if Blaska is arguing against you. Kind of a way to check your work per say. However this group, and others did not want Dave to speak and let them know. They were also upset at the board for allowing him to speak, despite the fact that it is illegal to not allow him his three minutes. But I digress, the point is, you have a better chance to have a Loch Ness Monster siting on Lake Monona than you do to find this meeting covered anywhere in our local paper.
Similarly but even more important, the Madison School Board will be voting preliminarily,on their next budget,that bottom lines more than $400 million dollars and there is nary a word about it anywhere.
This is why, I believe, that Madison365, was started or at least is needed, to fill in the many blanks that the local media leaves us with. Unfortunately they fell into the same category of teacher bashing and no real information when it comes to our public schools. Madison 365 did however give some column spaces recently allowing some union bashing by the guy who has been working very hard to get his hands on that public school money.
Just a quick show of hands here, how many people know the Scott Walker was the only elected official to be a key note speaker at a white power conference? or who in this era of we must punish kids, knows the punishment that Scott Walker dished out on his son Alex, who stole a state Van from the Governors Mansion?
The Wisconsin State Journal though, did find it necessary to sue the School district to get private medical records of the whole staff to make sure that the teachers who miss school, are sufficiently sick to their standards.
Yes the Founding Fathers gave the press freedom and protection to serve the governed, yet could not have foreseen the race for profits, the inability to stand for anything, and the lack of courage to upset the “governors” of this state and country, to get real news.
As Ben Bradlee/Tom Hanks asks in “The Post”:
“At least we got the wedding. Is there anyone else tired of reading the news instead of reporting it?”
Apparently not in Madison.
At least you always have Forward Lookout and Brenda Konkel to report actual local Government issues in Madison!
