The pitbull, or bulldog, or whatever

The American media has devolved itself into a mindless reflection of popular opinion. No longer does it report to the public information in an objective manner, but merely throws out anything it believes will reward them with the most ratings. A prime example of this took place in the past presidential election when Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was nominated as the Republican candidate for Vice President. Her nomination was historic, yes, but not terribly so, since the first female Vice Presidential nominee for a major party was Geraldine Ferraro in 1984. To be fair, it was the first the Republican Party had nominated a female Vice Presidential candidate. For that, she deserved some attention from the media. But what happened could only be described as a media frenzy. Her every move was covered with vigor. Throughout the election there was hardly anything she did that was not reported on the 24 news networks. Some might say it was because her nomination and campaign was historic, but that is far too naive a view. The true reason was that the country was interested, so the media had to constantly stalk her. Now some might say that is the media's job. To some degree that is true, but the media's more important responsibility is to protect the public. They should not be following a celebrity like some common gossip rag. Add to this the failure to investigate in-depth some doubts people had about her qualifications for office. This phenomenon was just another manifestation of the preference of the media to gain ratings and viewers rather than discover the facts and the truth in the news.