We have become a nation of characters who pick and choose what never seems to be “the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” Fox News jumped on the story and missed by a mile, then MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow blasted Fox News and missed the mark again. After that, some moron (I am sorry, I missed his name and position in whichever rabidly conservative group he belonged to) looked into the camera and said if Sherrod advocates sticking up for the poor and downtrodden she is advocating class warfare.

Lauer had it completely right. We are living in an age of journalistic garbage! Actually, it is far worse than that. We are living in an age very reminiscent of the 1950s and the time of U.S. Sen.
Joseph McCarthy.

McCarthy decided there was a Communist behind every bush in America and it was his job to root them out, destroy their reputations and bring every rotten one of them to justice.

The problem was there weren’t that many hardcore Communists in the U.S. There were a number of people who thought there should be equality in the American system and people should not be consigned to poverty forever. But that was beside the point; if McCarthy said you were guilty, you were guilty.

As we change from channel to channel on the television, we experience garbage masquerading as truth. A missing child does not automatically require Nancy Grace to proclaim to the heavens that someone is evil and a murderer. I only can speculate on how those parents whose child has disappeared feel in the first moments of the disappearance.

Are they suffering over the loss of their child? Are they fearful of what might have happened? Nowadays, I get the feeling they are praying with all their might that Grace or one of the other television vampires are not waiting in the wings to take a shot at them.

We have reached a crossroad in our existence where good, truth-minded citizens need to stand up and say, “No more!” One should not be fired because some idiot journalist decided to run a negative story that was not true, was never true and in actuality should be used as a lawsuit to take every cent from said journalist.

This new method of trying every high profile case — and many low profile cases — in the media has got to stop. Let Lindsay Lohan have her day in court without 10,000 media operators bending and twisting all that happens.

When did we go from a trial by jury to call-in campaigns by talk show hosts? Why is the innocence or guilt of Mary, Bob or Sam decided outside of the court where there are plenty of “alleges,” but barely any firm truths?

America was built on freedoms, but as with all freedoms, there comes abuse that destroys what we believe in. McCarthy tried it in the ‘50s, but luckily truth prevailed, though it was beaten and bruised. The number of people harmed and destroyed during that purge should never have been allowed.

We are again at the forefront of another assault upon the foundation of America. Ethical behavior does not seem to have a place in our government, our media and in many of our citizens.

It is not a time for purges, restrictions, name-calling, censorship, jail time or death sentences. It is a time for the simple telling of truth. If that simple activity takes place, the garbage vanishes
in the haze.

Craig Gunn is a State News guest columnist. Reach him at gunn@egr.msu.edu.