In response to James Fallows' four premises in “Learning to Love New Media (Superficial, Divisive, Unreliable),” April 2011. I have to say, while I desperately want to argue against his fears, as Deep Down I'm an optimist, I can't. I have discussed the topic several times and I must say that, apart from only a few points of specific contradiction, overall I agree. I believe this is becoming an age of lies and idiocy. I agree that there is already a tendency for the media to follow the money rather than the problems. I believe we Americans are becoming more and more isolated. Finally, our ability to concentrate is not only compromised by technology, but also by our own expectations of being entertained by the media. However, I don't think the responsibility lies entirely with the Gawkers of the world, but within us. This is a trend that has been coming for a long time. And, like a train along the tracks, it cannot be easily stopped. Fallows writes that this is an age of “truth.” The era of mass disinformation is upon us. I remember reading about the era of yellow journalism for a history class in high school. We were assigned to read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. We all know the story Sinclair told. Like his book, the news stories of those times were written to support a certain point of view or perspective. I have often wondered where the critics of yellow journalism are today. How is Fox News very different from Hearst's version of news in 1916? The difference isn't obvious to me. However, Americans are less likely to care. We have much lower standards for everything. It's almost as if Vietnam and Nixon were the beginning of the end of American optimism and sense of true decency. It's as if these two linchpins...at the center of the paper...existence as a nation have more to do with our economic sustainability and therefore our ability to provide needed services to each other and to our communities ? I would say that, given the recent tragedies in Japan, it seems clear to me that our very existence may be more dependent on our economic solvency. If we have the resources, we need to rebuild our infrastructure. We need to strengthen our nuclear power plants. We need to retrain and support our first responders. We need to make sure we can survive the unthinkable, because this seems like a more likely threat. The media is following the dollars and perhaps our government should too. I'm not arguing Fallows' point. Instead, I'm more interested in what comes next. Maybe we need to leave behind what we know to discover what's to come. Works Cited http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/index.cfm