It seems that I write more posts about how the media fails the American people more often than I care to mention. It probably is one of my most frequent topics, just because the media’s job is to hold people accountable for things and to keep its people informed of facts. The media fails us constantly. They only people they hold accountable are whatever people they want to hold accountable, and have become propaganda spreading machines. What makes them any different than media in other countries that are controlled by government to spread messages? The difference is we claim “Freedom of Speech”, which in actuality gets sent to the highest bidder because it’s about ratings and sales, not information being properly distributed to keep Americans informed.

Yesterday, there was a shooting at a Boston hospital. Every article I read alternated the ending of the story. All stories agreed that it was a cardiac surgeon that was shot. Some decided that the person was in custody after the shooting, others decided that the shooter had shot himself/herself. Everyone agreed it was a senseless tragedy It was like reading a “Choose Your Own Adventure” story. (Seriously, who didn’t love those?) Eventually, I gave up trying to find out what happened and eventually forgot that I had even cared. Why? Because the media wanted to be the first to get the story out, facts be damned.

This isn’t the first time this had happened, and it won’t be the last. Another more widely known flub is what happened with the ObamaCare supreme court ruling. Remember when they announced that it was unconstitutional? People roared with excitement! People, who immediately shut off their television rather than watch the rest of the breaking news report, went straight to the internet to troll. “Socialism is dead! Long live ‘Merica!!!” “On to further our fight for access to healthcare! We won’t be stopped!!”. Had these people watched their choice of newscast, they would have realized that upon further reading of the decision, their original report had been wrong and in fact it was ruled constitutional. Instead of being concerned with facts, they wanted to be the first to report it. Another memorable moment? When media outlets started circulating pictures of the “Boston Marathon Bombers”, two Arab looking young adults. They were being labelled terrorists, when they were just guilty of being Muslim at a place where a terrorist attack took place. Instead, two boys probably just a tad less white than I were ended up being the culprits while those original people pictured ended up having their lives harmed and potentially risked as a result of the media wanting to be first rather than be accurate or even correct.

To my other point about media propaganda, I bring into evidence an actor that I really enjoy watching. I read the headline “Seth Rogen Compares ‘American Sniper’ to Nazis”. My immediate thought was “Oh Jesus. Another celebrity that put his foot in his mouth. What an idiot.” Conservative media, and other people who follow it blindly, rant on about his un-American statement. (Hilariously, discussing their right to freedom of speech, ignoring his because they don’t agree with him that American Sniper is a nazi propaganda film). One even stating that as a soldier, they had fought for his god given American right, probably not doing enough research to know that it is his god given Canadian right since he is in fact, Canadian. Back to the point. I follow him on Twitter, and I actually read his post. “American Sniper kind of reminds me of the movie that’s showing in the third act of Inglorious Basterds.” I read that over a few more times, and I didn’t understand how that goes into “AMG AMERICAN SNIPER IS NAZI PROPAGANDA!!!” I didn’t understand the outrage. Even his tweets afterward made complete sense. I didn’t understand the controversy here. I still don’t understand the controversy here. So one movie stylistically reminded him of something else? If  it weren’t for the “Deflategate” controversy, I would agree with him that this was all just a result of a slow news day.

Which leads me back to the original point. I think I have read pretty much every article about how “Belicheat” struck again. I gathered it was mostly non-news since I had also read just as many articles about how Rodgers likes an over-inflated ball or how some people like to alter the ball so it’s more worn in. I even read an article where a team had heated balls during cold games. After all that, I only got one thing out of it: Any other team would be slapped on the wrist and talked about for one day on the news. Instead, since the Patriots were already caught with their hand in the cookie jar once, they are automatically guilty forever and ever. Some say the balls were taken out during halftime, which was when the Patriots really demolished the Colts. Did it help them win? Probably not, unless a deflated ball makes defensive players see a guy with a ball running towards them and decide to make a path rather than tackle him. Is it cheating? Absolutely and they should be punished for it. Is there one news article that is a reliable source at the moment? Of course not, the news fails at their job and should all be fired for people with actual journalistic integrity because this new form of media fails at what they were supposed to be doing: keeping the masses informed.