Traditionally, the new media has an obligation to inform and serve the public. For a long time now, the media has fallen short in these responsibilities. There are at least two critical areas in which the corporate media is neglecting to warn the American public about impending disasters:
(1) Despite the media pounding out a constant barrage of news about unprecedented climate catastrophes: tornados, flooding, heat waves, wildfires, etc., they seldom connect these increasing occurrences with global warming, despite repeated warnings from scientists. Perhaps it might stifle American business interests. Thus, these weather disasters proliferate and our government does little to rectify the cause of them. Until we do, the devastation will only get worse: more land will be destroyed, more people will suffer, homes will be demolished, and lives will be lost.
(2) Despite increased incidences of terrorist attacks on the West, and heightened fear about such from the public, the media fails to connect increasing American and Western military involvement in Muslim countries around the world with the rise of terrorism. It should be obvious by now: the more killing we do over there, the more killing they do over here. But we seem to prefer military solutions. That we could reduce the hatred and anger of Muslim civilians, as well as slow the recruitment of terrorists, by lessening our war-making in their part of the world is a solution the news media prefers to ignore. Perhaps it would not be in their interests, or those of the military and our corporate war industries. So the unending cycle of violence continues.
We are not being served well by a media that is supposed to inform and serve us. The consequences of that neglect will harm all of us.
