Orson Scott Card on Journalistic Failure

If you want an excellent article on the real culprits behind the financial meltdown, look no further than Orson Scott Card. He has written some of my favorite books (Ender's Game, Lost Boys, among others). In this piece he also holds the media accountable for abandoning journalistic standards of truth for ideological pursuit. From the article:

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Give it a read. You'll be glad you did.