From the beginning, I admit that I have a bias on the subject I’m going to address.

            I am a both a news junkie and a news purest.  This obsession with hard (read, real) news has been with me for a long time. 

In high school, while my classmates would be be-bopping down the hallways listening to Houston’s album-oriented rock station in their earphones, I would be strolling the corridors listening to the news-talk stations.  While my classmates would be reading Rolling Stone, I liked U. S. News and World Report.

            Whatever the case, I think it’s time we engage in some necessary soul-searching. 

            What kind of country do we want to have?  And when it comes to life-impacting events, where are our heads and hearts?

            The need for this type of introspection was revisited in true relief recently as I drove along listening to Boston’s news station, WBZ.  Sandwiched in between a story on the latest research on global warming and the Iranian’s release of the British sailors was a story on Anna Nicole Smith’s diaries.

            Truthfully, Anna Nicole Smith’s life and death are tragedies and I feel genuine regret over the pains her family and friends have experienced.  Yet, does a diary entry concerning Anna Nicole’s apprehensions about intimacy with her octogenarian husband rise to the same level of importance as the actions of a pre-nuclear Persian Gulf regime?

            The insertion of the Anna Nicole Smith diaries between climate change and Iran’s aggression in the Persian Gulf would tend to make us think so.

            What can be said of a country that focuses so heavily on which contestant gets eliminated on American Idol of who gets fired by Donald Trump?

Consider also the media’s fascination with Brittney Spear’s shaved head and the ongoing love affair between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. 

What does it say about our nation when our high school students know more about Lindsay Lohan and Keira Knightley than they know about Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton?  Is it possible that we know more about Sanjaya Malakar (the latest Idol hero) than we know about Dr. Manmohan Singh, Hosni Mubarak, Jonas Savimbi, and Mahathir bin Mohammed?

            The saturation of our culture with gossip as news is no longer limited to The National Enquirer, Us and People magazines.  The leading news magazines and most major daily newspapers surrender valuable column inches to the travails of Oprah, Rosie O’Donnell, Halle Berry, Ben Affleck, J. Lo, Justin Timberlake, Christina Ricci and Paris Hilton.  Is it possible that Americans know more about Halle Berry than they do about Stephen Harper, Tony Blair, Shinzo Abe, and Vladamir Putin?

            It’s likely that this social trend can explain the explosion of television tabloid news shows such as Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, Hollywood Insider, and Inside Edition.  How do the ratings of these shows match-up against CNN’s Lou Dobbs or Jim Lehrer’s News Hour?  What are the average ratings for any program on C-Span?

            We have to admit that America and Canada’s mass media are the most consumer-driven of our major industries.  The supreme economic law of “Supply and Demand” completely rules the decision making process.  ABC/Disney, NBC, CNN/Time-Warner, CBS/Viacom, Universal, and Fox/News Corporation’s revenue streams flow with advertising income.  Advertising revenues are driven by ratings, and ratings reflect what we’re watching. 

            What is our answer?  A positive first step is to turn off your TV and turn on National Public Radio.  Yes, NPR has a liberal perspective, but NPR listeners are still more informed than viewers of the CBS Evening News, CNN, and Fox.  If you want another alternative, tune in to a religious or an educational channel.  Then, write the networks.  Bombard them with phone calls, emails and letters telling them your  decision to stay away from TV News until they actually cover the news.  Next, urge all of your friends, relatives and coworkers to do the same.

Then there’s one more step. 

            Columnist Don Feder recently wrote that our cultural background is deeply rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  Mr. Feder went so far as to say that Western Civilization was born on Mount Sinai.  Whether you agree or not, he has a point.  The legal codes and moral standards to which most Americans and Canadians still tenuously cling at least partially originate in the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Law.

There are those who will no doubt argue that our concepts of morality and justice include the Code of Hammurabi, Greek democracy and the Roman Senate.  This may be true to a point, but it is provable that the road to Philadelphia in September of 1789 most definitely passes through, if not originates from, Moses and Mount Sinai.

            So, if our roots include a profound system of justice based on an intricately defined set of moral laws, we can be assured that if we return to our roots, our current climate would change for the better.

            The key word is “return.”  But, how do we do that?  Jesus gives us the answer in Revelation 2:5, “’Repent and do the things you did at first.’”  It requires a change of heart and a willingness to make some tough choices. 

If we would experience a spiritual revival, if we would return to our Judeo-Christian roots, then our expectations, interests and tastes would match our principles. 

Angela Merkel would get more attention than Angelina Jolie and our families would get even more of our attention.

            When that happens, it’ll be evidence that we’ve turned the corner and are once more headed in the right direction.