From Griper Blade:
“Let that sink in; less than half of all adults have even heard of the controversy surrounding voter ID laws. That is beyond awful. That’s journalistic malpractice on an epic scale. You can’t even blame the media’s weak he said/she said approach to reporting, because the American public doesn’t even know that “he” and “she” are arguing.
Democratic messaging on the issue could be better. You get the feeling that they aren’t making as big a fuss as they should because they don’t want to be seen as potential sore losers. They should be as riled up as they’ve ever been in history — and they aren’t. But the media really deserves the lion’s share of the blame here. You can’t have voters this poorly informed without something being very, very wrong with the information system.
Republicans may hate democracy, but the media seems pretty lukewarm to it. Which is stupid; without democracy to protect freedom, their industry fails.”
I only disagree on one point. When we get less democracy, journalists do not suffer, they change topics. They do less reporting on the policy and problems that impact average Americans and they do more reporting on what Kim Kardashian wore when she made a yogurt run with Kanye.
Read this post in full at Griper Blade – Voter ID and How the Media is Failing Democracy
There’s enough blame to spread around. The media is doing a disservice to democracy at an astounding level, but they could also broadcast a documentary on election fraud and lose viewer share to “Dancing with the Stars”. Here’s something that will scare the hell out of you:
http://hg.scimth.net/2012/08/19/undereducated-public-is-disaster-in-nov/