The Politics of Framing the news!

President Johnson once quipped that "Reporters are puppets. They simply respond to the pull of the most powerful strings." The point echoes Walter Lippmann's classic analysis of the press, Public Opinion, in which he raised difficult questions about adequacy and the purity of media information. If the information we are getting is tainted, he asked, are we capable of performing our duty as democratic citizens?

The press ... is too frail to carry the whole burden of popular sovereignty, to supply spontaneously the truth which democrats hoped was inborn. And when we expect it to supply such a body of truth we employ a misleading standard of judgment. We misunderstand the limited nature of news.

Democreat, Republican, Moderate, Conservative, Progressive, all requires reasonable information discussed from different points of view. We hear and think more clearly around that which we believe-this is the nature of our values and judgements. The problem may be if we are too cluttered to hear a different truth, another perspective then perhaps we are really not hearing. We can't always have the answer, but having good questions can go a long way from keeping the framing more real, more honest, more open for good decisions and choices.

And of course extreme points of view, probably loose so much in the translation, that no one really hears, or even cares- one would hope.

Bowling Alone!

Author Robert Putman makes interesting observations and shares researched insights about the changing nature of our society. If you haven't already noticed, we are not connecting much anymore and the sense of community and interactions we once experienced have all but vanished.

We communicate via email, fax, cell phone, text messages and all sorts of indirect means to get "connected". We eat on the run,cross paths with numerous people each day we choose not to acknowledge. We ignore neighbors at common mail box collection areas, and often sit in work cubicles electing not to know or engage co- workers.

Professionals often attend seminars and decide not to speak or even notice those who they have shared common interests and several hours of time. People both young and old share space and time without noticing or even responding in positive ways to one another.

We once bowled in leagues, hung out with each other, actually knew our neighbors and somehow those connections mattered. We were better for who we knew and we appreciated being known and valued by others.

Although texting and email is connecting, we may not be connected in ways that matter. Bowling Alone might be the symbol for what we have become, it doesn't have to be the way we always are.