The mainstream media: Is it mass or mess?

By definition, the "mass" media are those communication methods designed to reach large audiences with messages of interest and/or value to them.

These days, they tend to be subjective slurries of dubiously reliable information and, sometimes, questionable entertainment.

A crusty old curmudgeon might suggest (and this one does, actually) that "mess" might be a more accurate descriptor.

The principal pundits, in print, on the airwaves and at gathering places where everybody knows your name, are wont to characterize newspapers, magazines, radio and television as the "mainstream media."

This implies they report the news in an accurate, unbiased manner and reflect the current thought of the public majority - a goal about as attainable as herding all the world's cats into an orderly parade.

In modern reportage, the first and heaviest casualties are in the arenas of accuracy and objectivity - largely because human nature pollutes its "mainstream."

As an example, for more than a century, America's self-styled "paper of record" has proudly bannered the claim that it carries all the news that's fit to print, while only the information which fits its editorial policy is likely to be found above the fold and favorably presented on the op-ed page.

I hasten to add that I know of no major news bladder with a purely Lincolnian malice toward none, charity for all and strict adherence to the Boy Scout Oath.

Neither do I object to mass or mess media mavens who boldly take a stand behind their beliefs, so long as they are not wolves in sheep's clothing or whatever vice might be versa.

As a cultivated habit, I shuttle between MSNBC and Fox News, to get a healthy balance between leftist and rightist biases, in the hope that I can find, under the mounds of rhetorical horse-poop, an occasional pony of straight-scoop.

In doing so, I wonder why (and bemoan the fact that) there is no discussion program anywhere in the mass/mess media wherein there is a serious and genuine debate of the issues that drive and bedevil our daily lives.

Such a forum would be a departure from the familiar and fatuous format of one partisan firing a salvo in one direction which is answered by an unsupported denial, rather than a pointed rebuttal, or by an equally thunderous salvo aimed at an entirely unrelated target, usually fighting off opposition "talkovers."

Also tolerated, particularly on so-called "discussion" programs, is the careful selection of opposition quotes out of context, launching each one like a clay pigeon and then shooting it down with a buckshot blast of party-line talking points.

What I would much rather see and hear in place of this cacophony is a genre of programs on which self-confessed partisans are invited to express a specific viewpoint on a single issue, followed by a targeted rebuttal that is spot-on and restricted to that narrow subject.

Ideally, this discipline would be sternly imposed by an objective and impartial moderator charged with holding fast each participant to the matter at hand and empowered to interrupt him/her if/when he/she strays from the path of relevancy.

Such a format would also entail shutting down the microphone of each participant while the other is speaking or when either runs over an agreed allocation of air time - hot or otherwise.

This arrangement would provide an opportunity for listeners with open, inquisitive and analytical minds to get a broad grasp of contentious issues that are of interest to the public, without the circus atmosphere and blatant bias that pervades media supposedly committed to informing their audiences.

Granted, such a formula would wreak havoc on some of the most popular shows, inhospitable "hosts" and immoderate "moderators" on both radio and TV, as well as swell the ranks of unemployment among talking heads and "experts" whose expertise is limited to what they see on a Teleprompter or read in party line publications.

What I'm looking for - perhaps praying for - is a rare medium through which honest brokers of reliable information can practice the profession of communications, which has been reduced to a whoredom of downwrong lies, half-truths, propaganda and unsanitized bull scat.

In ancient Greece, Diogenes carried a lamp in broad daylight, vainly searching for an honest man in a corrupt political environment. Such illumination is no less needed in the mess media of today.

Meanwhile, my lamp is lit and my search goes on, but the glare is daunting, the prejudices persist and the cats resolutely resist herding.