The Undiscovered Country

News Blackout

I hate news media. I know I'm not supposed to hate anyone, but I truly despise news media today, especially national media. They don't care about anything unless it "proves" their preconceived notions about a certain issue or incident. If it doesn't, they will ignore any facts to the contrary, and use only the "facts" that do.

I've always known news media was biased, but until I started paying attention to the North Dakota Access Pipeline news, I didn't realize how bad it was. While our local news agencies did present most of the facts (some are better than others), but national news coverage ignored all points of view except the so-called "protesters." It's nothing less than journalistic malpractice as far as I'm concerned.

For example, although two court cases proved the protesters wrong in that the pipeline does not go through reservation land, and no burial grounds or other historically significant sites had been disturbed or destroyed, almost every national news article left those parts out. They also never considered Law Enforcement's point of view; only how the protesters are [allegedly] being mistreated and injured, and how Law Enforcement continues to violate the "protesters" civil rights. Not a word about the laws the "protesters" broke.

Yesterday I read the ACLU's letter to the Department of Justice, and their cited sources included articles by Salon, Democracy Now!, other magazines or newspapers from other states - even blogs. They included not one local news source.

You can read the letter here: https://www.aclu.org/letter/aclu-standing-rock-letter-justice-department

With today's election I have decided to engage in a complete news blackout, and that includes all social media. The news media has proven time and again who they want to win, so they will cite only certain counties and states that are all but guaranteed to go to Hillary. They will throw at us exit poll after exit poll that also "proves" their desired results in the hope they will discourage the other side from voting at all (in an attempt to repeat what happened in Florida in 2000).

Truth and facts not only don't matter to them, they are like garlic and sunlight to a vampire.

I will wait until tomorrow to find out who won and who lost, both nationally and locally. News media talking heads pretending to know everything - including the future - are nothing but sirens screeching in my ears, and I refuse to torture myself.

Maybe by then I will no longer give a rat's ass.