What the World Needs Now....
...is not "Love Sweet Love". It's an absolute fanaticism about holding people accountable. I'm not sure what the whole story is about Armstrong Williams and the Dept. of Education, but it stinks to high heaven. Our government needs to deal straight with us and whoever is the senior administration official that signed off on this needs to come forward and explain what he/she was thinking.
As for Armstrong Williams, I don't care if someone in the press picks up money for endorsing a product if it's presented as a product endorsement. But when paid endorsements are shoveled as news stories, that's crossing the line. Remember Viacom/CBS flipping the 60 Minites puff piece interviews to Richard Clarke and others over the summer? The publishing house Simon and Schuster is a Viacom subsidiary. The parade of authors and their Simon and Schuster books was an infomercial for Viacom, masquerading as a news program on Viacom (CBS).
We are only as good as our information. (Read about the impact of acting on inaccurate information here.) If "ostensibly" vetted news coverage can be bought, it has no value at all. The most important characteristic of information is accuracy and if news coverage can be bought, then more often than not, it will be bought to distort rather than to promote accuracy.
No Child Left Behind may be the best thing to happen to the US Public Education System since public funding began. Or not. But it needs to prove itself on it's own virtue. That's the only way to be sure.
As for Armstrong Williams, I don't care if someone in the press picks up money for endorsing a product if it's presented as a product endorsement. But when paid endorsements are shoveled as news stories, that's crossing the line. Remember Viacom/CBS flipping the 60 Minites puff piece interviews to Richard Clarke and others over the summer? The publishing house Simon and Schuster is a Viacom subsidiary. The parade of authors and their Simon and Schuster books was an infomercial for Viacom, masquerading as a news program on Viacom (CBS).
We are only as good as our information. (Read about the impact of acting on inaccurate information here.) If "ostensibly" vetted news coverage can be bought, it has no value at all. The most important characteristic of information is accuracy and if news coverage can be bought, then more often than not, it will be bought to distort rather than to promote accuracy.
No Child Left Behind may be the best thing to happen to the US Public Education System since public funding began. Or not. But it needs to prove itself on it's own virtue. That's the only way to be sure.
posted by ironcross11 | 9:19 AM
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