I cannot read or watch news for a while. In the last few weeks, I have seen too many brutal, horrible, awful stories describing what some human beings willingly choose to do to one another. I’m not talking about random murder or other assaults, but utterly depraved violence and cruelty that exceed my tolerances. I refuse to link to these stories nor go into detail about particular ones that have made my bones shudder. They hurt my soul. Call me naïve, but these levels of maliciousness and disregard for human life are just sickening.

I’m not sure if this wave is just some cyclical pattern with news organizations, coincidence, or purely my imagination. For now, I’ll just stick to learning about disease and how we might possibly cure it, which gives me some hope.

This morning my alarm, set to our local NPR station, blared at 7:30 am, and as I slowly emerged from my morning stupor and the consciousness began to flow, I found myself listening to an “interview with Conductor George Matthew”:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7048846 of Carnegie Hall. He was discussing the parallels between Verdi’s _Requiem_ and the genocide in Darfur, the show playing clips of music that my mind instantly put to eerie scenery he described. Apparently top-notch musicians in New York area banded together recently to play this music to raise awareness of Darfur and the millions of people affected.

Having played the piano for many years, I always found the exercise intriguing—utilizing imagination to enhance the meaning of a musical piece. While I would do this at my piano teacher’s urgings and arrive at scenes that echoed my personality or current mood, this morning’s foray into the imagination was jarring, the dark music mirroring the untold horrors of living in constant fear. Jarring in that we allow ourselves to live so peacefully while such things are happening elsewhere to other innocent human beings.

The exercise inevitably aroused existential questions of why I am here and not there. We’ve all had these reflexive musings of purpose and destiny and why our consciousnesses were so lucky as to end up in these bodies in this, the richest country on Earth. Such questions, though not germane to solving the crisis, underscore the urgency to find a solution: Those are real people dying. The world has an obligation to end “this conflict”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict. As _the_ world superpower, we should lead by example and be the first to commit to ending this by whatever means necessary. Estimated dead range from a conservative 50,000 to 500,000. The “Washington Post cites”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/15/AR2006101500655.html 2.5 million displaced. It took much prodding for our government to come forward and call this genocide, but the UN has still refused to do so.

We should do more. We owe it to humanity. The cost of doing nothing is too great in light of even a single life lost.

For those that have it, Verdi’s _Requiem_ truly does wake your soul to the true magnitude of the human plight in Darfur. I listened to it twice today, and you should too, if only to remind yourself of another world far away where people are hurting every day.

As I have stated before, I will state again: the national media acts like the fourth branch of government. Given their access to people via the Internet, TV, radio, and newspaper and their ability to peddle that influence, for all intensive purposes, they _ARE_ the fourth branch of the federal government. This week, after Vice President Cheney’s hunting mishap, has been especially telling about their relationship with the Executive branch. Through David Gregory’s unprofessional tantrum on Monday, preposterous questions like, “Would it have been worse if [Harry Whittington] had died?” and the “continuing”:http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/19/coverstory.tm/index.html, self-serving coverage (read: whining) from virtually every national mainstream news outlet, I can take it no more.

For the sake of completeness, let’s review the facts.

• Fact: Dick Cheney shot a man.
• Fact: Dick Cheney shot a man while hunting.
• Fact: Dick Cheney accidentally shot a man while hunting and did not fatally injure him.
• Fact: Dick Cheney reported the incident to the local authorities _after_ first attending to Harry Whittington.
• Fact: At no time did Dick Cheney or those around him attempt to hide any information about the incident or prevent its release to the public.

Too many reporters get off on the need to pass information onto viewers/readers/listeners while injecting their experience at the same time. These reporters and editors delude themselves into thinking that these actions are a true service to the American people—that in the same vein of investigative reporting the likes of which Woodwoord and Bernstein have never seen—they are keeping tabs on the Administration and any run-away powers that might attempt to mislead constituents. Here’s what I have heard over the past week that the media purports to be important information:

• Not fact: The White House press corps deserves or needs to have this information first in order to disseminate it.
• Not fact: The White House press corps is _the_ sole source of Presidential news information.
• Not fact: The Vice President owes it the American public to hold a national news conference (with the White House press corps) to explain himself.
• Not fact: By not using the White House press corp as a means to disseminate the information, a disservice was done to the American people due to a time delay in getting that crucial information out.

You know what would be nice? News with just the facts. Maybe there was a time delay. Who cares? The man who was shot was in the hospital getting better, while the media whines that it should have been notified quicker. How pedantic! Well… Well… If the media shouldn’t be notified quicker, then let’s find something else to quip about: Dick Cheney had a beer at lunch. Oh, no! The man was shot late in the afternoon, for crying out loud! OK, well, if that doesn’t work, then….let’s read into Cheney’s relationship with the President. “Chris Matthews”:http://www.thechrismatthewsshow.com/ must be right about a growing rift between the President and the Vice President because the VP didn’t speak about it for a whole day and half to Bush. You know, now that I think of it, Monday reminds me of, well, the first work day of the week after a weekend. That is probably when the two were back in the office together. (Note, Bush’s staff has already been notified.) Coincidence, the media thinks not!

Regardless of politics or ideology, this asinine approach to news is retarded. The American people deserve the facts. Leave the editorializing to the last section of the newspaper.

Journalists have an obligation to investigate and report current events, but to what end? I would argue that once the information is disseminated in a complete manner, regardless of the means, then the duty is done. Certainly, if the information comes from a small-town newspaper, broader coverage is warranted. For some stories, this is what happens. Yet, the national media apparatus, when slighted or directly involved in some event feels compelled to inject whatever new nuances possible (i.e. time delay, beer, imaginary growing rifts within the administration, “we’re being demonized” excuse) in an attempt to distinguish themselves from one another in the vain attempt to win at the ratings contest. They have their faces so buried in the story (because they have made themselves a part of it), they cannot even see that they are doing themselves a disservice by forgetting “all”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/18/AR2006021801571.html “the”:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-riot18feb18,1,1222506.story?ctrack=1&cset=true “other”:http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/02/17/philippines.landslide/ “worthy”:http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/international/middleeast/19cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1140411600&en=54e8a0daf52f9a76&ei=5094&partner=homepage, and “important”:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10704051/ news of the week.

Fortunately, the internet provides for a way to bypass the stifling atmosphere of that looming fourth branch of government. The average person was over this story on Tuesday or Wednesday, yet we are still going to be subjected to another week of non-news that speaks more about the media than current events. Sites like “Newsvine”:http://www.newsvine.com/ (sorry, membership required) have long since moved onto relevant news. Too bad we cannot elect members of the mainstream press, for then we might see some effort to change their dubious ways.

p.s. I have free membership passes to Newsvine to give away. If you would like one, please post your name in the comments.