Lying scandal builders disserve calling

In the 1980s, Israeli singer Arik Einstein released "My Little Journalist." It quickly became popular among those disgusted by unaccountable gossip purveyors utterly unconcerned by the harm they engendered.

This song seems of particular timeliness, given mainstream media's often ideologically bigoted, factually wanting treatment of Donald Trump and his supporters.

Reporters, columnists, and on-air personalities frequently repeat character-assassinating charges already disproved numerous times over. Their ambition is not to enlighten, not to reveal truth, but simply to destroy.

I take a backseat to no one in supporting a free and independent press, one that can expose wrongdoing, advocate for the public interest, challenge the powerful, and speak forcefully with neither fear nor favor. 

Far too often, though, that is an ideal unrealized. Unscrupulous corporate overlords, constantly seeking to lard their plates with new and greater profits -- truth be damned -- encourage sensationalism and cultivate controversy. 

(Years ago, Professor Michael Parenti told lecture audiences that the most foolish claim he'd ever heard a reporter make was that, 'Nobody tells me what to write! I write what I like!' Of course they were allowed to write what they liked, Parenti explained, because their bosses liked what they wrote. Those journalists had been allowed professional comforts because they had proved willing to reinforce prejudices and values harbored by powers-that-be.)

Sadly, the lyrics to Einstein's 1980s "My Little Journalist" apply to a host of 2016 microphoned miscreants. 

"My little journalist" 

They write in the papers
What they want,
Castrate, derogatory 
and make a mess
No mercy.
get in to your bed,
Peep holes,
And what to do
There's no mercy for you

causing shame,
Hurting family,
If today was my turn
So tomorrow will be your turn,
The king has no clothes
We are all 
see him naked
but we are silent and don't get up

So how do you sleep at night
My little journalist?
How do you sleep?
What do you dream about at night?
After the shedding of blood
How do you sleep?
Man, how do you sleep?

They kill with words…
playing with your soul,
Where I ask
is the love?
They broke his heart!
So there will be a fight!

They write in the papers
Castrate derogatory 
and make a mess
No mercy.