By Susan MacAllen
Oliver North has a beef with the Smithsonian. The American institution, largely funded by public tax dollars, has decided what information it will allow him – or anyone - to present to the public. Recently Col. North, on behalf of his Fox News series “War Stories”, went to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum to get footage of the Enola Gay - the WWII airplane that dropped the nuclear bomb on Japan. To his surprise, he and his crew ran into such resistance from the museum that, in the end, it was impossible to get the material they needed for their documentary; this, in spite of the fact that the Smithsonian exists to preserve American history for us all.
Col. North commented that he received better cooperation from the Vietnamese government and Ho Chi Minh’s protegees.
It turns out that the Smithsonian has entered into a “secret” business deal with Showtime/Viacom, which gives the media company exclusive control over film and photos of historical treasures (our historical treasures) in over 150 of its museums. Senator Charles Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee (which oversees the Smithsonian), told Col. North, “This raises serious concerns about any contracts that the Smithsonian may have entered into that limit people’s contact with American treasures...”
Why should it matter that a media conglomerate controls access to the Smithsonian? Consider this: since the early 1980's, studies have repeatedly shown considerable liberal bias in the news media and entertainment industry. Studies specifically performed since 2001 have shown that not only are the media liberal and growing more so, but the ideological attitudes of those working in news media and entertainment are far removed statistically from those of the country’s policy makers as well as those of the general public. Thus if a major entertainment media giant is deciding which documentarians have access to what American historical treasures and for what purposes, where does that leave us? What quality of educational information can we expect to receive?
This story is illustrative of a growing trend in American society: small groups of people with limited ideas and limited ideals use power, intimidation, money, or outright deception to control the information the public is receiving. Our sense of reality is based upon information, that which we receive from popular books, newspapers and television news, documentary films and textbooks. If the people who control the information ignore real balance and feed us only the political view they want us to see, how can the average time-stressed American hope to truly understand his world?
This year was the first in many that I didn’t watch the Academy Awards Ceremony. I read the next day the syrupy praise of the night’s coronation of the Left’s new king, Al Gore. In the months since his film An Inconvenient Truth was released, I’ve despaired at the number of people who’ve bought his lopsided, sloppy pseudo-science theory…hook, line and sinker. Many have quickly learned the Left’s comebacks to criticism of the film; one of the most popular is that all scientists who disagree with Gore work for, or have formerly worked for, the government (that evil Bush Republican government) or the oil industry. That could be a valid argument - if it were true . But the fact is that many dozens of scientists don’t agree with Gore, many of whom have no such ties to government or oil. This matters because 1) public attention to Gore’s chant detracts from attention to exploring real environmental problems, funding real solutions for the future, and 2) a politically savvy Al Gore is using a badly formulated theory and a lot of personal charisma to gather momentum toward the next election.
And so, Gore’s misleading film and his marriage to the overwhelmingly Left-leaning entertainment industry is a recipe for molding reality for the American public. How much information do we get on the other side of the issue - the one that finds some very big holes in his thinking? Can we expect it from the liberal news media? Not likely. They aren’t interested in talking to scientists who won’t jump on the Gore bandwagon. The issue for them is not what is truth - it is simply how best to sway thinking to their agenda.
Surely this molding of public thought has always existed in some form. But what is different now is that the news media are increasingly biased and increasingly unconcerned with a past journalistic ethic which called for a balanced, dispassionate presentation of information. It was this ethic that allowed the average American to trust the news; and this ethic was evidence of a media industry that held respect for the intelligence of the average American and his ability to decide on his own, given the facts. Now, we are living in a society where the news media have sacrificed truth and facts to the mindless hammering down the public’s throat the view of a select group of people. There is something deeply non-Democratic and un-American in this sad state of affairs.
Another recent incident demonstrated how far this new trend toward (mis)leading the public by the nose has traveled. The Congressional hearings surrounding former CIA agent Valerie Plame’s being “outed” by the Bush administration have for many Americans taken on a circus-like tone. Liberals in Congress are wasting taxpayer money in another witch-hunt attempt to embarrass the president, and worse, they are wasting time when they could be doing the jobs they were elected to do. (In any other job, when one is so far sidetracked that one neglects his daily responsibilities, he gets fired.) After weeks of hearings, no charges are forthcoming. There is no evidence that anyone intentionally outed Valerie Plame, and there is considerable evidence that her “covert” status as an agent was common knowledge for years, and openly revealed by her own husband.
But the news media has pounded away as the liberals pounded away, hinting that this or that official had been out to get poor Valerie and the sinister Bush administration had carelessly put her life in peril. The news coverage was so insistently one-sided that one had to dig considerably to get at the real crux of the story: namely, that Ms. Plame hasn’t much of a leg to stand on. But never mind thinks the news media - if we cover it endlessly and suggest often enough some wrongdoing on the part of the administration, people will think there actually was wrongdoing. Never mind that there is no evidence of it. Never mind that the Democrat Congress is wasting all that time and money chasing ghosts. What matters is that America gets the impression - given the information they are selectively fed - that the Bush administration is evil.
There was a time when we trusted news information, and the intentions of museums and the educational integrity of documentaries. What a world that was - not perfect, but for the most part based upon fact. Now, our young are taught a revision of history in classrooms and led to believe in ideas to which their parents can’t relate and of which they wouldn’t approve. Our universities have forgotten that professors need to present fact and truth - not the popular Left mythological view of the past and present and, perhaps worse, its aim for the future.
That world where fact reigned supreme and Americans were respected enough to be given real information, and then decide for ourselves, is slipping away. We must insist on Fact - no matter who agrees or disagrees with it. We must insist upon it in our schools, from our teachers, from journalists, from museums, in newspapers, magazines, television and in film documentaries.
We must insist that we are nourished with the Truth, no matter whose inconvenient truth it is.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Susan MacAllen writes a political blog, http://askew.blogharbor.com, and has written on an extensive array of subjects for over 20 years. Her education is in veterinary nursing with a special interest is microbiology/infectious disease. She has lived overseas and been intimately involved in the French culture since the Muslim immigrant population emerged in the south of France.
© 2003-2007 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved
