Today, how we look and how we “present” information has become far more important than how we gather it. It’s upside down and backwards. And, the worst part is … we have gotten used to it.

The caretakers of the Fourth Estate have, at times, left the building unattended. Public interest be damned.

It was Thomas Jefferson who noted in 1799 that, “Our citizens may be deceived for awhile, and have been deceived; but as long as the presses can be protected, we may trust to them for light.”

Jefferson trusted the press - not to stir up heat, but to deliver insight.

Of course freedom of the press and of speech both come with pitfalls. People can peddle opinions as if they were facts. Those armed with the big, expensive megaphones drown out those blowing whistles.

But now, we see our fellow citizens taking to the streets. And, that my friends, is our cue to get back to work. As the People of our nation begin rising up, they expect the business of news to be about inquiry and accountability.

And, luckily for us, we can still do that … but it may not be within the confines of big corporate media. As you know, we are living in an age when big money owns everything … including the news.

That cash bought a lot of silence for a long time. Enough time for unchecked power to get this country tangled into messes all around the world. We all know that money talks. But, so do the people. They tire of conflicts at home and abroad … conflicts that avert our eyes from the corruption and callowness that does little more than spill our blood and misspend our treasure.

“We had fed the heart on fantasies,” wrote William Butler Yeats, “the heart’s grown brutal from the fare.”

In other words, we have gotten used to it.