When there is no new bad news to report to the public, the media considers it a slow news day or week. That's when they resort to stretching old stories out with more and more uninteresting details. If they get lucky, they might hit upon a new important piece of information about an existing story that is sucking up media oxygen and attention.
Consider the Hillary e-mail controversy. We will not learn anything new until someone does their job and proves that she broke the law. Otherwise, it's reporting on more and more of the smokescreens the Clintons are masterful at generating.
Consider the GOP open letter to Iran. It caused the administration and the Democrats to have a hissy fit, and they are still whining about it. If they have a good deal with Iran on nuclear weapons in the works, then reminding the world that any deal would require U.S. Senate ratification wouldn’t change a thing.
The arrest of a suspect in the shooting of two Ferguson, Missouri police officers is good news, but coverage will quickly fade because that will not incite more violence and riots.
Consider the ISIS crisis! Every day we get a new report on something related to the war against ISIS, but we never get a feeling that we are making real progress against them because we lack a clearly defined strategy, and there is no definition of victory.
So to add some more smoke screen to our efforts to combat ISIS, Secretary of State John Kerry announced he would be willing to sit down and talk to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Really! What leverage do we have that might entice him to want to sit down and have some diplomatic talks? None! Nada! Who are they kidding? Yep, they give the media something else to talk about that's going nowhere.
It reminds me of a cruise I went on once that was called a "Cruise to Nowhere". Yep, it sailed around in the Atlantic Ocean far enough away from shore where you could not see it, and then after a day, one night, and another day we returned to dock and the cruise was over. But! We went on a cruise.
The news that should dominate the media includes things like a federal balanced budget proposal by the GOP House majority. The fact that it balances in 10 years versus the president's budget proposal that never balances should be a hot good news story. But good news stories don't sell as well as bad news stories with blood, death and mayhem as the leading characters.
An honest reporting of the economic news would be refreshing and inspiring. Good news stories should be about what's good for the country or people in general, but that's not what journalism students are taught, and it doesn't sell as much advertising.
But it could! Producers and reporters would have to work harder to analyze and connect good news to people's lives. That takes creativity, time and additional work. That's not something most journalists can learn on the job because they are always on a news cycle clock, which is usually very short.
On the other hand, we can do that on talk radio. That's why we will follow developments on the GOP balanced budget proposal (it balances!), tell people the truth about the economy (it's stalled), tell people the truth about ObamaCare (it's hurting more people than it's helping), and tell people the truth about US foreign policy (we have none!).
We can also get into the truly relevant details of things that affect people’s real lives – like the shrinking labor force, which puts the lie to Obama’s claim that the employment picture is improving. Or the spread of right-to-work legislation to states that previously were dominated by union power and influence, which will create more jobs and give people more freedoms. Or the heroic actions of our troops, our police officers and even business leaders who take risks and create value to benefit millions.
These things are fascinating, and we can present them to an audience that wants to know about such things. They present a much more complete picture of what life is like in this country. You won’t hear about them from a media that is obsessed with the game of politics and has pledged allegiance to an ideology that disdains much of what I mentioned here.
But thankfully, the legacy media no longer dominate. That’s good news for everyone – especially those of us who figured this out long ago.
