Well, I’m afraid it is happening again. I’m about to have a rant. So, in keeping with my character, I am warning you.  Not everyone may agree with what I have to say and I can appreciate that.  If I offend you, I apologize but that will in no way change my opinion. Read on, if you dare.

We live in a digital age. Information is passed instantly from person to person, country to country. We do not have the luxury of time to think, we simply react. I am not a fan. However, the ability to exchange information instantly has an upside. The media employs this daily and we do reap the benefits. The media is often getting a bad rap but not all of it is deserved. They perform a vital service that we could, in all honesty, not to do without. But the media has a dark side. It is dangerous, it is insidious and it is all too real. Let me give you a fictitious example… I would like to think this is fictitious but it may not be, in all honesty.

A young politician is walking down the street towards his office gripping his first latte of the day. He’s feeling good about his constituents about his belief in the system when he is approached by a pseudo-reporter. A microphone is thrust into his face and a very attractive young woman asks a question: “Are you using still cocaine on the job?” The young politician has not built up a repertoire of how to deal with such intrusions so he simply looks stunned, shakes his head and tries to bolt for the building. All of this is caught on camera. Our pseudo-reporter now has the time to interpret his reaction in the most salacious and derogatory manner she can. That’s what sells right? But she has 3000 followers and within seconds they all know what she wants them to know. The young politician? Never touched a drug in his life and now his career as a politician is in tatters.

Too many people out there are interested in dirt, scandal, salaciousness, vulgarity and you can package it anywhere you want. They don’t want the truth; they probably wouldn’t even know if you hit them with it. They want gossip. And there is an aspect to the media nowadays whose only goal seems to be the gutter. Should we call him the Gutter Media? Or Dirt Mongers? They spread hatred through half-truths and lies, false news and innuendo. They are the Media Terrorists that we should be afraid of. And they are protected. Sadly, they are protected by the Freedom of Speech. That freedom was bought and paid for by our ancestors who died for those rights.

If you feed a child nothing but sugar and fatty foods from a young age, they will grow up to crave it. Few will be able to make the break. That is what a section of the media is doing to us. They say we are asking for it and they are right only because we have become addicted. We need to break the addiction; we absolutely need to!