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[danimich1]

21. I was getting my master's in public affairs reporting

In the late 80's. Everything was great until we did a chunk of time studying in DC one summer. We met with the heads of all the big print bureaus - Time, Newsweek, etc. it was this great immersive program. I learned pretty quickly though that my naive expectations that reporting the news was to help educate the public was so so wrong. I learned that the reporting was for other reporters, who would write a better headline, who had a chance at a Pulitzer. It was all a big game - they all knew the nasty gossip and secrets of the real stories, but it wasn't about reporting, it was all about the "gotcha" moment. These people we're all so far removed from what real people were experiencing.

This wasn't just the media, but the legislators, too. They were so insulated from real life. They were protected from real people by their staffers. They took trams around the Capitol and only associated with each other and lobbyists. Yards away from them were scores of homeless, destitute people, yet everyone there walked around in their business suits and dresses and didn't even see the desperate sad lives around them.

I also interned for a senator and at the EPA. I thought The EPA was supposed to help protect people. What a joke. I sat in pre-press briefings where they discussed the strategy for how to avoid answering questions that would make them look bad and would show how they weren't doing their job. How to avoid those "gotcha" questions is all they were focused on.

The senator I worked for was treated like a celebrity by the staffers. He was chauffeured from place to place and met with the lobbyists and other legislators. I answered phones and kept a tally of people's opinions on topics of the day. I don't really think they cared. He was completely insulated. I never saw him, but heard lots of stories.

None of these people have a clue what the real world is like, what real people experience. Their lives are simply about competing with each other, impressing each other. That's it. They are just like the popular group of kids in high school who are so rude and nasty, and who feel good only when belittling others that they think are inferior. They are not real - they define themselves by who they can convince to surround them. Everything they do is to keep themselves within the popular group.

I ended up doing non-profit work because there's no way I wanted to be a part of that plastic society of people.

These are the people who are running our country and the people that are supposed to be reporting and keeping our government honest.