Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2006 | Anthony St. John’s recent letter asks an important question about where the outrage is among the populace concerning San Diego’s inbred corruption in the political leadership. He lays much blame at the door of the San Diego Union-Tribune for helping foster, protect and enable that corruption to continue and deflect public sentiment and response. Unfortunately, he left out the U-T’s co-conspirators – much of the rest of mainstream media, most of the time.
San Diego’s media monoliths, especially television, are as a whole, unsuited to the job of watching over the powers that be in this city and have ever been so. Further, they degrade this community by their lack of intelligence in reporting, their refusal to thread the links of corruption together to offer the populace a clearer picture of what that corruption means to them and in short sum, are the enablers of every kind of base chicanery against the public. If it weren’t for the majority of the media in this burg, O’Connor, Golding, Murphy and Sanders could never have happened here. That this kind of malfeasance continues unabated isn’t the fault of pols alone; their buddies in the editorial departments and newsrooms, dependent on the patronage of the few, and the profitability of the doings they ignore, are equally to blame for the condition of this city and their declining circulation and public regard is exactly what they deserve for their actions. Personally, I hope for their extinction and the rise of a better media, more suited to the public, in their place.