A cause that deserves some play

This is the top of the CNN.com home page today. As you can see, there is a picture of unemployed people (mostly mid-career white guys) standing in line to apply for jobs. Next to that picture and story is a photo and article about the growing protests against Wall Street, our gridlocked government and a variety of other social and economic issues.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I support any movement that is going to shine some light on the gross unfairness of what has become a corrupted, rigged-for-the-rich system -- a system that has led to catastrophic unemployment rate and the loss of the American Dream. I also support the media coverage.

While the Tea Party on the far right seems to focus only on one or two issues -- abolishing taxes and supporting gun ownership -- these protesters on the left have a broader sense of what has really caused the collapse of America and what it will take to restore hope. And it isn't more guns or less government intervention.

I applaud this coverage and high-visibility display by CNN and hope other media outlets will give these current movements as much publicity as they gave to the Tea Party and protesters abroad.

Along with the 99 percent finally waking up, maybe the mainstream media has also awakened to the fact that they don't have to go overseas to cover chronic injustices. Perhaps the media will put a little less time into covering one American girl's battle to beat a murder rap in Italy and place more prominence on what is becoming massive movement that addresses issues that impact virtually every citizen of this country.

As prudent news judgment and smart story selection continue to slide, the media has been late on a lot of important and relevant stories in the last decade. Underplaying and overplaying stories is an epidemic in more and more newsrooms and is a factor in creating fertile ground for abuse of power to grow in government and society in general. Missing the boat on the unemployment crisis is quite ironic for an industry that has been as hard hit as any in terms of job loss. I often wonder if a more responsible, competent news media could have prevented a lot of economic pain, not to mention two wars, if it had concentrated more on watchdog journalism instead of pouring limited resources into what is essentially fluff.

Perhaps if editors, news directors, writers and photographers would return to covering news that matters most to our way of life -- to our very existence as a nation -- they would not only help inform an apathetic or often misinformed public, but they would help themselves in restoring the once-positive image of journalism.