I seek a media that provides alternate voices. I want thoughtful dissent. I want to see what it’s really like in the street and in the boardroom. Currently, we lack the full range of portrayals. Instead, we get a sanitized, homogenized and overconsuming caricature of what it means to live a human life. Even the people who do want to take some bitter medicine (those that want to expose themselves to the full range of reality) are going to need to work hard at it.

For when people are ready for thoughtful entertainment and unvarnished news, it’s important that it be there for them, easily available. My fear is that it is (with very few exceptions) simply not there.

The consumers and the media can both do much better.

Although media reform is a worthy goal, ultimately the media isn’t the cause of the problem, but a symptom of the problem. Too many people desire glitz and trivia more than real news about the issues that really matter, and of the ones that are left, many only want news that reinforces whatever beliefs they already hold and not objective debate that challenges their preconceptions.

The devil in the details of popular sovereignty is that with great power comes great responsibility. If we the people have the ultimate power, then we also have the ultimate responsibility; if the media shows us what we want to see, we should first hold ourselves responsible for wanting to see pleasing illusions rather than the truth.

Until a majority of the *audience* prefers accurate reporting and meaningful analysis to propaganda and fluff, real media reform will be a pipe dream. Ultimately, the buck stops not in the White House, but in a hundred million living rooms.

Here is what I would suggest: If you can STAND IT, take a good hard look at your local newspaper and local television “news,” and ask yourself whether we can do better to inform the citizens on important issues of the day. Or whether these “news” sources have devolved into mostly mindless entertainment, including a full 5-minutes occupied by weather and weather-teasers when there isn’t ANY meaningful coverage of state and local politics.

The main concern (I know that I’m being presumptuous in speaking for Sanders) is that numerous stories and perspectives are being ignored by the corporate media. Only a narrow range of information IS getting out, and it too often comports with the viewpoint espoused by big corporations.

As discussed at this session (http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=946), “news” all too often ignores intelligent analysis and contexualization of current events.

Once we start hearing these currently-missing perspective, it’s not going to be Nirvana. That’s simply when the process of democracy can truly begin. Without these other viewpoints, though, we are flying blind.