This country needs a divorce....

[bluethruandthru]

27. We need to look at how the insanity came about...

The telecommunications act of 1996 relaxed the ownership restrictions on media. That allowed companies to purchase large numbers of radio and TV stations across the country including many outlets in each market. That suddenly made radio/tv groups a way to make huge amounts of money that wasn't possible before.
Owners began 'consolidating' by firing local on-air talent, programmers, etc. and running syndicated programming on their stations. This gave rise to the Rush Limbaugh/Sean Hannity/Glenn Becks of the world and pushed out local information and influence.
This is something the republicans had forseen and pushed for for many years. Give them credit...they knew what needed to be done to gain control of the media.
Once you have that control, you can tell the country whatever you like. You can just make shit up if you like and people will believe you because we had been conditioned to trust what we heard on "news" programs.
Until we go back to extremely limited media ownership (ownership should also truly be local)..we'll never start to undo the damage.