Letter to CNN

Here's a letter I wrote to CNN sometime a while back after getting disgusted with their bullshit reports.

Hello,

I decided to write this today after trying to swallow a few minutes of CNN's televised newscast. There is such a dearth of news coverage in this country that's actually conducive or (god forbid) complementary to an informed citizenry.

There's the old adage that 'It's not what the news reports; it's what they don't report'. And I find it truer now than ever. I wish that CNN would throw out its trivialities, and entertainment-riddled 'news' reports, and tell it like it is. In order to keep honest people honest, there must be a vociferous press, willing to dig into dirty laundry.

MOST importantly, the distinction must be made between entertainment, and news. News is not something to be predisposed by inflammatory speech, sensational rhetoric, or half-truths. (Left, or Right) Instead of looping your anesthetized garble for hours on end every day, go deep into a subject and tell the citizens what they need to know, and what they can do to make it better. YOU as citizens, with the position of influencing an entire nation, have the burden of promoting a participatory democracy. News is not, something to make you feel warm and fuzzy about. It is a tool to inform, in order to improve the world we all live in.

I so heartily wish, that CNN would take the model of PBS, NPR news, or Democracy Now, & report the facts. We need the facts. It is not the job of the reporter to be the judge, jury, & gavel, or to impose personal judgment on the masses. Report the news. Stop leaning toward the sensationalism so sensationalized by Fox news. We don't want it. Let the ones who need a nice feeling watch Oprah. Give us the truth. The ugly truth.

Thank you,
Joshua Shepherd
US Navy 2002 - 2008