Citizens or Consumers?

By: Alex Jones

Low voter turn outs across the board, and an overall indifference being felt lately in American Politics, could this be attributed to the poor coverage major news stations are currently displaying? Alarming to me is that the three major broadcast stations in America: NBC, ABC and CBS seem to be down-playing their coverage of the current presidential race and instead focusing more on their ratings.

With these major stations worrying about their ratings, there seems to be no time for the Presidential race. In 2004 NBC aired Fear Factor in place of the conventions where current Democratic Presidential hopefully Barack Obama made his first appearance (Karr). No wonder America has become disinterested, voter turn out, especially in youth has been in a "steady decline" and voter turn out overall is only striking between "50-55 percent" (Karr).  

In my experience it is tough enough for the youth of today and voters overall, to maintain their interest in politics without the temptation of flipping the station to see their favorite reality T.V. show airing at the same time. Journalism should strive to cover all of the political hype, regardless of ratings. It is their job to provide accurate information to the masses. Without the help of these major television stations how are the citizens of America supposed to stay informed? More people continue to tune in to their television sets for their current news. I cannot help but feel that this is an incredibly low blow to broadcast journalism overall.    

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-karr/networks-sleep-while-demo_b_121438.html