A Case Study in Apathy

       It is in my humble opinion that the media is what it is because we allow it to be that way.  I guess it could be argued that whistle blowers like Manning are few and far between because journalists face too large a penalty for exposing secret documents. It's the governments fault! No wonder members of the press don't like to say anything too controversial.  After all, Manning was doing the world a favor; getting the truth to the people. This is something to be commended for, not imprisoned for.

      Daniel Ellsburg, on the other hand did not go to jail.  He was, and is commended to this day for the leaking of documents that led to.... Well it didn't really lead to much, did it? I mean, he had a lot of support from his fellow Americans, and his actions are looked upon as courageous. He was thought of as someone doing a service for his country. But what did the people do with the alarming information brought forth in the documents he leaked.....NOTHING. More than nothing actually, they voted for Nixon in the next presidential election despite the documents that clearly undermined his honesty and integrity. Why? Because the public has a tendency to listen to the news, talk about it over dinner and then never think about it again. It's not that we can't handle the truth, its that we only care about it for a very short period of time. We don't think or talk about it long enough do anything meaningful about it.
      

      So then the next argument could be made that the press has failed as a medium for democracy. But this can't be true when looking at situations like Ellsburgs. He leaked the documents, the newspapers ran the stories even when they knew punishment would be imminent, the stories were published over a considerable time period and there was tons of publicity on the matter. It seems that all of these factors should have lead to an almost immediate reaction, either by the Nixon administration to pull out troops, or the public looking to push for an impeachment. That didn't happen. Oh well, I guess they could have at least voted for a new president next election in reaction to the news..... Nope! That didn't happen either. He won by a landslide!
      
      It is not that the press has failed as a medium for democracy, it's the public's failure for not caring enough about democracy in the first place to even want a medium for it. And the Elsburg case is a perfect example of this. So is it the media's obligation to inform us?  They do on less controversial topics like global warming, but you don't see everyone rushing out to buy a smart car do you? In Fact, it's the opposite, people are buying bigger cars than ever. Public apathy is far too high for the media to care about facts, and even when they do, society doesn't.