100th Post: Fair and Balanced?

If you’ve turned your TV on since last Friday, you’ve probably heard these two topics; 1) McCain chooses Sarah Palin as his running mate; and 2) Sarah Palin’s daughter is pregnant. Now to hear or see such topics unfold you’d have to be watching or listening to some sort of program. But the real question being asked in this post is, “what are you hearing?”

In this 100^th post on the Neutral Zone, I can’t think of any better topic than of journalists unfair. As stated in other posts the whole concept for this particular blog was to get people to try and understand the points on both sides. Now of course we have our own views and beliefs and that’s alright, for my point in getting people to hear/read, analyze, and choose. Perhaps the best example would be a political one. Ex: Sometimes people vote for their party because it’s their party, simple as that. Now that’s not always the case, there are Republicans out there who are voting for Barack Obama, there are the Joe Lieberman’s who are voting for McCain. But in an election, and this is probably sounding old, vote not just because it’s your party, but because the candidate you’re for is whom you believe to be the right person for the job- and don’t vote just because you’ve heard a few inspiring speeches. Hear. Analyze. Choose.

Since I’m 18 and can vote this November, I started out late last year trying to find the candidate I would vote for- sadly their no longer running but I’ve made my second choice. My Mom told me not to be persuaded to the party my dad was for, but to be open and learn from both sides, and indeed that it was I did and am still doing to this day.

But it would seem that in today’s world many people are not hearing both sides, or are being led to only favor one side. In my last post I wrote about the “experience debate” involving Gov. Palin. CNN’s Campbell Brown, a democrat, questioned McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds as to whether Palin's supposedly little political experience contradicted McCain's previous emphasis on the importance of such experience – like with Sen. Obama. Bounds said, "Any decision she has made as the commander of the National Guard that’s deployed overseas is more of a decision Barack Obama’s been making as he’s been running for president for the last two years," she responded, "So tell me. Tell me. Give me an example of one of those decisions.”

Now there’s nothing wrong with Campbell Brown’s question, there is however when the same question is not being asked of the other party. Yes many have stated that Gov. Palin has more experience than Sen. Obama, but as far as I can tell Sen. Obama’s experience is hardly being discussed on the major networks - not saying it hasn’t happened somewhere. What I’m talking about is fair journalism. The media might say they aren’t doing such thing, they say their just asking questions being asked by the American people- or something like that. But when you spend so much time on the “possible faults” of one party and not on the other, there’s a problem. The cable news networks (FOX News, MSNBC, CNN) share their thoughts, but NBC, ABC, CBS shouldn’t be. If the media or press are going to inform the American people of the day’s events, they report, they tell both sides, and they are fair - they must prove Bill O’Reilly wrong when he says the media is trying to get Barack Obama elected.

This is just my opinion; you’re free to do whatever you want- the media is free to do whatever they want, its freedom of speech, and its freedom of the press. We all know what persuasive writing is, but I think we’ve reached a problem when we have persuasive UNFAIR journalism. Like I said, we all have our own opinions, but we shouldn’t give one person a hard time for being one way and be easy on someone we like even though they fall under the same category. So I think I’m going to call this 100^th post: Fair and Balanced?