Back in the late 1960s, a professor at the University of Toronto, Marshall McLuhan, coined a phrase that seems to be more relevant in today’s society than ever before. The phrase was “the medium is the message.”


Scholars have debated just exactly what this phrase meant. For me it has always meant that the perception of reality as presented by the media is much more powerful and long-lasting than the reality. This is not a new phenomena, but with our electronic media today we see incorrect perceptions being repeated and repeated over and over and over until the incorrect perception becomes cemented as reality in the American psyche.

A few examples are in order to help understand what I am saying:

The first example is that Ronald Reagan cut taxes and the economy boomed. The truth is that Reagan did cut taxes and soon after a huge recession followed. To combat this, the Reagan administration pushed through several tax raises to combat the huge deficits that his tax cuts caused. There were raises in gas tax and social security. There were “revenue enhancements” and fees imposed for things like visiting national parks. Who can forget Reagan’s vice-president and successor campaigning on “no new taxes?” Why do you think H.W. Bush had to do that?

And then there is the perception that Democrats pile on the debt. When Reagan came into office in 1981, the debt was a little over $1 trillion, much of which was racked up by Nixon in Viet Nam. When Reagan left, the debt had nearly tripled. George H. W. Bush added another $2 trillion. While Clinton added a little less than a trillion, there was some actual payoff during the latter years of his administration. But George W. Bush came in and ran up more debt than all his predecessors combined. So the last three Republican presidents and, to a lesser extent, President Nixon are responsible for about 90 percent of the current debt.

How about this for a perception – America has the greatest health care system in the world! Don’t you wish it were true? Maybe based on some of the near miraculous things doctors can do, the U.S. a great medical system. But that is only for those who can pay for the care they get. For the rest of us, good luck. Many now have the choice between health care and bankruptcy. I would bet every person reading this column knows at least one person who has lost their health care, or can’t get health care, or is up past their eyeballs in debt due to medical bills. Look, if our system were so good wouldn’t other countries be copying us? None are. And the last two who had anything like our system abandoned it decades back. We are much closer to third-world health care than to the health care of modern societies. And they pay far less than we do.

Last one. Americans have always been proud of their diversity of news sources. Yet today we have nearly the same diversity that the old Soviet Union had. There are five or six major sources, all of which follow pretty much the same ideology. No wonder we accept the incorrect perceptions peddled by the media. They have no competition. This country now has little competition in anything, especially in news sources. A little quiz – who are Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez? My bet is less than 10 percent can name the program they anchor.



Dave Bradley lives in West Liberty.