The Sliding Scale of Right and Wrong 9/12/09

Oh, I don't know. My guess is I can ignore it a very long time.---Bob Ford, Philadelphia Daily News

As I sit here staring out the window watching the clouds breaking up after a day of rain, my thoughts wander. What is news and who decides what is and isn't important enough information for the public to be made aware? Does the electronic and print media use a sliding scale of right and wrong to make that call? Or in the case of the Philadelphia Daily News is it a dipstick?

What is important to us? Should what happens in California or Maine or Georgia make any difference to me out here in the sticks? Yes, it should. Folks around the country should be looking cross-eyed at those of us in this state for inflicting Tom Daschle on the world and keeping him living on the public dime for nearly thirty years. Even a heartfelt apology doesn't seem adequate to convey the shame. I am sorry though. I voted for him, I fell for it, once. I learned early. I'm still sorry.

The fact is a crook is a crook is a crook regardless of geography. As the line between the sports world and the 'real' world blurs it becomes even more evident. How many of us grow irate at the thought of Congress lecturing sports figures about such things as morality and ethics when the Gang of 535 is at least as corrupt as those players and coaches who're being browbeaten? And yet as the voices of dissent grow louder we're still fed a daily dose of slop from the media. Honestly, I don't care whether the First Lady looks good in a pair of shorts. I really really don't. Expose dirty dealings and illegal activity-sports world and real world!

If a prominent athlete is spending quite a bit of quality time with a character carrying a shady past and even shadier future for God's sake tell us. By the same standard if a good guy is in fact a good guy tell us that too. Hey Reporter Guy, how about trusting us to be smart enough to make decisions for ourselves? The current landscape is littered with bankrupt media outlets that thought it better to decide for us what we were supposed to think. Look how well that worked out.

I want to know that our games at least have the illusion of squeaky clean (yes, I'm an idealist). I want the sports figures I hold in higher regard to be worthy of being held in higher regard. I'm not going to lie and say I never patterned how I played after certain players, or conducted myself off the field by how I saw my favorites carry themselves. There, I admitted it: I considered some of them 'role models'.

When I was a kid the people reporting on sports were at least moderately successful at unbiased reportage. Those who call themselves 'reporters' nowadays are just faking it. "All the news that's fit to print" has deteriorated to "Only the stuff we feel like printing". How sad.

My generation is by now jaded and lost. This generation deserves the same chance we had to have 'heroes'. I'm not naive enough to believe the world was, is, or ever will be perfect. Without honest, unbiased, unfiltered information sources all this generation can look forward to is 'Oh, I don't know. My guess is I can ignore it for a very long time'. This generation deserves better.

Thanks for reading.