Buy the Truth and Sell it Not

In the movie, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the newspaper editor and his reporter have just finished hearing the true story from Jimmy Stewart about the Liberty Valance incident. When the true story conflicts with the legend, the reporter asks, “What shall we do?” The editor replies “Print the legend.”

How appropriate is this scenario when applied to our press today. Solomon records from the Proverbs “Buy the truth and SELL it not.” If only the freedom of the press, for which our founding fathers fought for and sacrificed their lives on the battlefields of war, meant today that reporters would hold that standard of truth as a core precept of their profession. Unfortunately that standard has fallen and we are all the poorer because of it.

Of course I should not complain. Last fall, I was told by the press that if I voted for John McCain, that

• Our country would be divided by the harshest partisan politics ever
• Our economy would go in the dumpster
• U. S. foreign policy would be controlled by self-interest groups
• Voting fraud would rise and we could not ever trust the integrity of the voting system again
• There would be protests in the streets of America
• We would have the most incompetent vice president ever

Well, the press was correct. I voted for John McCain and every one of those things happened.

As we protest with the TEA Parties across our nation and are smeared as right-wing radicals by the Obama Attack Machine, perhaps it is time to include a protest against the press. Let us quit buying newspapers. Let us turn off the network and cable news casts and only support those that are “Fair and Balanced”. Let us support talk radio and promote the blog opinion makers and hold those with an agenda and sell away the truth accountable.