Williamsonian Ethics

In recent weeks there have been many reports of journalistic propoganda. It all started with the revelations that the neocon Armstrong Williams was paid $240,000 to report favorably on the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA). In the past few days, it has come out that Maggie Gallagher was on the payroll of HHS to report favorably on the marriage initiative. These cases question the independence of the media. How may more can there be? The White House claimed that Armstrong Williams was an unusual case and not representative of most the media. However, with the revelation that Maggie Gallagher was also paid by the government (HHS in this case), the very idea of an independent media becomes more and more suspect. In order for democracy itself to flourish, the economy needs to move towards more environmentally and labor friendly policies so we have a more egalitarian distribution of income. More importantly, when the leadership of the Democratic Left re-asserts itself, democracy may yet return to the U.S. Without an independent and critical media, democracy cannot exist and totalitarianism is the word of the day.