Dear News Providers,
While it is easy to point fingers at politicians, you are in no way blameless for the current state of affairs. Long ago the ideas of integrity and fact were replaced by speculation and entertainment, leaving a gaping hole in the system. Without an informed electorate, the governing officials aren't held accountable, and your shortcomings have enabled the inept to remain in power, grinding the process to a halt.
One reality of media, whether print, broadcast, or internet, is that producing content isn't free. That said, decisions have to be made based on both financial soundness and social needs. For example, 24-hour news networks do no one any good; you tend to lose money and we tend to lose the real content amidst the stories of celebrity scandal and generic puff pieces. If you only have the capability and means to give half and hour of quality news broadcasting, generally that is better than stretching it so think that the watery programming is not so much news but fluff with a fact broth.
Similarly, Internet news needs to embrace the medium instead of using it to accomplish things in the same way as its predecessors. Computers allow for the consumer and producer to be linked more closely than ever before, yet the article is still the staple for publication. Some writers go the extra step to bring their audiences into their work, but most just write it and let the moderators take care of the resulting trollfest. If the process of communication was more readily embraced by you, it could help us to become informed by making topics more approachable. By refusing to innovate, you have stifled our ability to use media wisely.
It also needs to be agreed that the news should constitute facts. Some people can be swayed when you use tidbits of truth to push opinion one way or another, a fault that doesn't solely rest on your shoulders, but that you initiate. When these people make mistakes because of your influence, those who aren't fooled blame you for not being responsible. News is fact, but using facts loosely to accomplish an end makes everyone look stupid, and reduces your credibility.
News also needs to be an unbiased as possible. Though you take pride on your stances, I'd consider it an embarrassment to every American journalist that most media networks wear their ideological slant like a badge instead of like a mark of shame that outs them for deceptive practiced intended to deceive the people. Granted, nothing can be completely neutral, but the practice of displaying material that is clearly just to sway voters is appalling, and it shames me to see America embrace it.
Those points made, the worst thing that is happening now is that issues are being boiled down to two sides, and then presented as a dichotomy instead of having many different solutions. I'm not sure if the media brought about the idea of blue/red or left/right, or if it happened on Capitol Hill first. What I do know, is that the average person doesn't believe things to be black or white, but a shade of gray, and the outright refusal to produce content to inform and promote discussion is at best ignorant and at worst malicious. By feeding into the system, you have become a tool for the politician to assault the public's opinion instead of a place where the public can reasonably form one. It's easy to have two people who believe that an issue is either yes or no scream at each other because it entertains and requires little work. It's your duty to show the whole issue, from causes and predictions to cure and discussion. Boiling down the news into easily digestible tidbits isn't difficult, but it also creates something that can't be reasonably called news.
Not everything has to be complicated, and I enjoy being entertained as much as anyone, but it's time the media remembered what news is. News is anyone being able to understand what positions their government is taking, why it's taking them, and their options to either support or oppose decisions. The first amendment assured a free press for this use, and you have squandered it on Bill O'Reilly, Keith Olbermann, and Snooki, and it's time you remembered the press as a tool for starting discourse.
Thank you for your time,
A Concerned Citizen
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