Have you had enough? You Know, Enough Paris

Our living rooms, cars radios, inboxes and water-coolers have been besieged by Paris Hilton. It seems that you cannot escape the saga of this celubutant. Every penthouse, outhouse, lighthouse and roadhouse has been drowning in an overabundance of media coverage relating to this Hollywood saga. While I am happy that she has found God, though I do find myself humming John Cash, this is an example of how the media fills up our television options with poppycock!

During this period of intense media coverage the world goes on and real news and real issues happen.

Television news has long been the most offensive lobbyist in the United States. A recent study by the Culture and Media Institute found that 68 percent of Americans believe that media harming moral values and an alarming 54 % believe that the “news media have a negative impact on moral values in this country.”

Other highlights from the eye-opening survey include:

• Acceptance of responsibility to provide for his own needs. 64 percent of heavy TV viewers believe the government should be responsible for providing retirement benefits to Americans, compared to only 43 percent of light TV viewers. 63 percent of heavy TV viewers prefer government health care to private health care, compared to only 43 percent of light TV viewers.
• Acceptance of responsibility to respect the rights of others by practicing classical virtues like honesty, reliability and fairness. 31 percent of heavy TV viewers say they would cheat a restaurant by paying a bill that omitted some items. Only 19 percent of light TV viewers said they would cheat the restaurant.
• Acceptance of responsibility to uphold high moral standards on social and sexual issues like divorce, sex outside of marriage, abortion and homosexuality. 52 percent of light TV viewers would limit the availability of divorce, compared to only 44 percent of heavy TV viewers. 51 percent of light TV viewers describe themselves as pro-life, compared to 37 percent of heavy TV viewers.
• The media are undermining commitment to religion. The more a person watches television, the less likely he is to value religious principles and obedience to God. 47 percent of light TV viewers attend church or religious services at least once per week, compared to 28 percent of heavy TV viewers.
• The media have a seductive effect. The more a person watches TV, the less likely he is to believe the media are influencing the nation’s moral values. 78 percent of light TV viewers believe the media are harming American moral values, but only 58 percent of heavy TV viewers agree.

The obvious conclusion that one can reach by perusing these alarming statistics is simple: the news media is, by and large, uber-liberal and those who watch siginificant amounts of these liberal telecasts are buying into arguments like global warming, same sex marriage, stem cell research and a host of others.