There Is No Fairy Godmother

It seems that “(j)ournalists are unhappy with the way things are going in their profession these days. Many (journalists) give poor grades to the coverage offered by the types of media that serve most Americans: daily newspapers, local TV, network TV news and cable news outlets. In fact, despite recent scandals at the New York Times and USA Today, only national newspapers - and the websites of national news organizations - receive good performance grades from the journalistic ranks.”

Isn’t that so darn sad…poor little journalism majors, all upset about the quality of their product and the public perception of their profession. Too bad that after they made an “A” in creative writing class in high school and spent five years getting a four year undergraduate degree in “journalism” that they had to find out that successful professional journalism involves doing research and reporting boring things like THE TRUTH and using messy things like FACTS and DETAILS to support their stories. You can’t just run around reporting stories about what you FEEL or BELIEVE in your stupid liberal head—at least not since the advent of FOX News and the arrival of a couple million bloggers on the scene.

What is amazing is that they still believe that the national media like the NY Times, USA Today, and the LA Times should get a good performance grade. Can they really be serious? Just like a drug addict, they profess to want to change, but their goal is to cut back on their addiction, not to stop altogether, and for this reason they are doomed to failure because they just can’t say no every once in a while—it’s all or nothing.

Take the current hubbub on Social Security reform, for example. If you listen to media reports, President Bush is going to take away our senior citizens’ Social Security Checks and allow STUPID AMERICAN CITIZENS to invest some of their own money in the risky lottery known as the stock market. What, let a common citizen make their own retirement investment decisions—NO WAY—a certain formula for disaster. Quick, everybody, cover your eyes and ears and run away to hide until you are retirement age and let the SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND (held safely in a lock box) take care of you.

Why can’t the media bring themselves to report the truth about Social Security? Because reporting the truth would be favorable to the position of the president and the Republicans and counter the to position of their favored Democratic party. You do realize that the core of the Social Security debate is about government power and winning elections and has very little to do with your long term financial stability, don’t you?

This single issue (social security) really bothers me and further leads me to dislike and distrust the media. How can hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens who make their living as so called “journalists” allow their own political bias and opinions to overshadow the American People’s common good? Why can’t more than a few of them stop reading and reprinting their own mindless Democratic talking points and start doing some actual research and report the FACTS to their viewers and readers?

Fact #1—THERE IS NO SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND. The government is stealing over 12% of my money and giving it to people that have retired. When I retire, they intend to try to do the same thing to younger working citizens, unless I happen to keep earning income at the rate I have been able to earn it in the past in which case the government fully intends to look me squarely in the eye and tell me to GO TO HELL YOU MEAN OLD RICH WHITE MAN. Then there is always the possibility that I will die before I reach the revised 72 year retirement age in which case the government accountants will issue a collective sigh of relief and the actuaries will utter a muffled “I told you so”

Fact #2—THERE IS NO FAIRY GODMOTHER—so if you are under the age of fifty you better start planning for your retirement today because if it is up to the media and the Democrats you are going to be sweeping French fries at McDonalds or greeting people at Wal Mart until you are 100 Years old to supplement all of the money that the government has saved for you in their mighty LOCK BOX.

YOU GET MY POINT?