A Response to Jeff Greenfield’s Op-Ed

A Response to Jeff Greenfield’s Op-Ed:

http://news.yahoo.com/my-plea-to-the-undecideds--stay-home--05095507.html

I just finished reading your op-ed piece, My Plea To Undecideds: Stay Home!

In it you claim that “with a flick of a page or the click of a mouse,” the electorate has been able to find out everything it needs to know about the presidential candidates because “the media have been covering their every move and word”.

I find this laughable because while it may be true for both President Obama and Mitt Romney, it is not true for Governor Gary Johnson, Dr. Jill Stein or any of the other third party candidates who are running for office of POTUS. They have all been virtually ignored by the media. You write, “The candidates have been at this for years; both President Obama and Mitt Romney began running for the presidency six years ago.”

Interestingly, you don’t even acknowledge that other candidates exist.

Honestly, how much effort have you and your media colleagues put into insuring all the candidates and their platforms are made known to the electorate. Indeed, wouldn’t making a concerted effort to inform them of all their choices, right up to election day, be the honest and ethically responsible thing to do. Instead, you have the audacity to insult and berate undecided voters, telling them they have “the reasoning power of a baked potato” because they haven’t decided between one of two virtually identical corporate puppets.

It strikes me that a more honest statement for you, as mouthpiece of the media, would be to say: “Look, I haven’t given all of the candidate’s in this presidential election even a fraction of equal coverage, and it’s just not fair for me to judge someone who takes time to carefully consider their vote because they give a damn.”

I’ll finish with one last thought for you Jeff.  Perhaps as a follow up to your most recent book, “Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics”, you could write a fictional story about an America where major media news outlets are run by journalists rather than corporations. An America where candidates from all legitimate registered parties who’ve manage to cut through the red tape of the electoral process and made it to the presidential ballot are given equal representation by the news media. As you develop the story and watch it unfold, you might discover that the electorate isn’t as numb or dumb as you make it out to be. Imagine one scenario for example; an America where the media doesn’t muzzle Dr. Jill Stein but instead chooses to shove her down the throat of the public the same way they do Kim Kardashian. Think about that tonight while your stay at home watching the results of the election in which you didn’t vote.

-Jordan Jancz