MISSOURI WATCH: THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN NIGHTMARE

I am not prepared to blame fully the news media for the malaise that is now draped like a shroud over our American Republic, but neither am I willing to absolve it. Although many of its critics have sought to assess the sole blame for general dissatisfaction with government at all levels on the institutions that deliver much of the information we receive from Washington and Jefferson City, the culpability extends much farther than newspapers, radio and television.

There are, after all, components of public ignorance and indifference that extend to citizens who are unwilling to spend time to inform themselves, public leaders who purposefully mislead and misdirect public attention, and special interests that have a vested incentive in distorting news and information.

Unlike some of my print compatriots, I am also unwilling to blame the dumbing of Americans on the advent of evening television news, consisting of 18 minutes five days a week when citizens of a democratic society supposedly dedicate themselves to learning how they are governed by a central government, 50 states governments and thousands of municipalities.

It is possible, of course, that Americans' concentration was diminished, somewhat, when TV news turned from information to entertainment, when whatever local news was gathered was read from prompters by persons selected for their jobs by appearance rather than training and ability.

Somewhere in that mix of keeping the nation informed about mindless movie stars and pop music millionaires, we could have mistakenly arrived at the impression that we were being well-informed by bits of gossip tucked between used car sale-a-thons and laxative promises.

Surely we Americans are mature enough to know that we require more than a 20-second segment on health-care proposals or the latest ramifications of the Hancock Amendment. One grows suspicious, however, upon recalling the nation's fascination with the O.J. Simpson trial, which featured individuals we knew much more about than the Majority Floor Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives or the Secretary of State of Missouri. While millions of Missourians can even today readily identify members of the Simpson defense team, most would be unable to identify as many members of the Missouri General Assembly.

The state of indifferent ignorance unfortunately extends far beyond the boundaries of mainstream citizens, however. When he was in Missouri recently for an appearance on a state university campus, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas seemed to boast about his news-reading habits, declaring that he seldom glanced at a newspaper, and when he did he confined himself to the comic and sports pages. One wonders where the honorable justice learns about such important issues as family income disparity, militia threats and the nation's shameful crime rates. He certainly doesn't inform himself of these critical issues by reading "Peanuts" or the latest NBA scores. I'm not picking on a former Missouri assistant attorney general for he has plenty of company, even among those who are as highly placed in both federal and state governments.

Unfortunately the indifference to public affairs extends to a broad spectrum of the American population, even those strict constitutionalists who apparently have forgotten Thomas Jefferson's insistence that America, to be properly governed, must have a well-informed citizenry. In fact, Jefferson declared, the Republic will eventually fail if its citizens do not keep themselves fully conversant with the affairs of state. Jefferson and his fellow founders felt keenly about this subject, even as they were denouncing many of the abuses of a free press. Jefferson, in particular, grew to loathe the press, even as he was calling for its unbridled freedom in order to inform an arbitrable public.

When we reach the point that most of us adopt the same reading and information-gathering habits as Clarence Thomas, we will become a nation of poorly informed, purely subjective, laconically indifferent citizens. We will have reached the point where we lack sufficient information to govern ourselves and incapable to making judgments about whether programs and policies further the cause of freedom and democracy or whether they hinder and retard such cause.

If you read only the comics and the sports page, if your sole source of information is 18 minutes of television news five evenings a week or a 3-minute radio bulletin, then you have already established the quality of your citizenship and limited your ability to function as an enlightened member of American society.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of the Missouri News and Editorial Service.