Media, For Better or Worse

THE FACT THAT AMERICA'S LATEST mass murder, the one which happened on live TV in Virginia, involved journalists, is, first and foremost, not a valid indictment of the media. The news media has a bad rap and a bad rep these days; how much of it is deserved is anyone's opinion. Sometimes the American people blame the media for things for which they should blame the American people. Media is, after all, just another reflection of the larger culture from which it emerges. Alas, we are not gifted at blaming ourselves. How long will it be before all the copy cats show up, dramatically staging some hideous shooting spree and posting it on social media? Fame seekers, desperate, and flaming out brilliantly and taking others along for the ride. Products, ultimately, of our culture. What we call "social media", the electronic mob, can indeed attract terrorism, but it also has the obvious virtue of having the potential to promote democracy and equality of all kinds, social, economic, political. Syrian refugees are showing up in Europe with I phones; the world is well connected, any good idea has a chance, but so do the bad ones. One must ignore the chaotic cacophony and see the big picture, of a world where we can all share one another's misfortune, and devise new strategies to eliminate them. The internet is the cat, out of the bag, the cow, out of the barn. The internet is the place where the revolution of the world's poor against rigidly established economic systems which favor the wealthy can gain traction and momentum. It would take an epidemic of mass murders in living color to offset the potential good that can be done with today's electronic media.