The Chicken Little chorus

One day Chicken Little was walking in the woods when — KERPLUNK — an acorn fell on her head “Oh my goodness!” said Chicken Little. “The sky is falling! I must go and tell the king.”

Has anyone noticed how, like those who followed Chicken Little, the Henny Penny national media eagerly parrot what government officials tell them, repeating “The Sky Is Falling!” stories in their news reports - as if it were fact?

In spite of the re-working of the Paulson plan by the House of Representatives, we read and heard over and over the same headline “700 Billion ...” as if that number was set in stone.

We heard and read over and over that “...something must be done NOW,...” and that “if we failed to act ...” the sky will fall, or words to that effect. The word “crisis” was bandied about as if it were an accepted fact, while most of us went about our daily routines without detecting anything unusual. What's even more bizarre? How about the disappearance of the word “bailout“? Suddenly it became a “rescue“!

To get a perspective on the lap dog behavior of today's media, ask yourself, have I seen any headline to the effect, “Bailout Bill In Danger Of Passage”? Thankfully, recently there was one, from Reuters (Oct 3) headlined Financial bailout vote looms. Seeing that was like finding an oasis in the desert.

In a memo to the media, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnson of the New York Times wrote: “In covering the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street don’t repeat the failed lapdog practices that so damaged our reputations in the rush to war in Iraq and the adoption of the Patriot Act. Don’t assume that Congress must act instantly, as so many news stories state as if it was an immutable fact. Don’t assume there is a case just because officials say there is.”

Now there's a voice crying in the wilderness.

If you remember the children's fable, those who followed Chicken Little and Henny Penny barely escaped being eaten by the big bad fox. It takes some thoughtful searching to find news articles and opinion that run counter to the barrage of lapdog media propaganda, but the effort is worthwhile.

To make your search a little easier, check out our Libertyway.net news page.

"Act as a rational being and aim at becoming a rallying point for all those who are starved for a voice of integrity - act on your own rational values, whether alone in the midst of your enemies, or with a few of your chosen friends, or as the founder of a modest community on the frontier of mankind's rebirth.

- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged