Having spent years as an observer of the 'blogosphere', going way back to the late 90's in the infancy of this medium, I am happy to, in earnest, begin my participation as a contributor to what is likely the most effective and open forum and medium of political discourse and debate that we can avail ourselves of today.

I will try, in my posts, responses or direct emails to any potential readers, to be as forthright, fair, honest and informed as one can possibly be, while providing my own personal insight and knowledge about topics I cover on my weblog.  The impetus of this undertaking is to really support the tagline of this website:  MAKING OPINIONS COUNT.  This, I believe, is achieved not only by forming opinions that are as airtight as possible, but by also placing force and effectiveness behind those opinions, so they are leveraged for the greatest possible effect in the decision-making processes and arenas that matter most to our society.

This effectiveness of opinion-making and proliferation of same is not easily achieved.  However, it is very easily identified.  We are fools not to agree that the opinions of media moguls or talk show hosts or legislators and administrators in our government have a greater and more direct effect on policy and legislation, not to mention voter sentiment, than any individual or sometimes even collective voter opinion.  The 'masses' are deemed silent by policy makers and executors, and the media that cover them.  This was alluded to by President Nixon in his run-up to election in 1968, and it is absolutely the fact today.  Examples of this silence can be seen by comparing the will of the majority, as it relates to issues such as abortion, stem cell research, terrorism, border enforcement and taxation against the portrayal of this public will in the mainstream media.  If a truly representative and comprehensive poll of American voters could be conducted on these issues, (a gargantuan task if it is to be done legitimately and verifiably) I would be supremely confident in asserting that the media coverage would be in stark contrast to the true and verified majority opinion. 

The effect of this disparity is two fold:

1) the incessant and ubiquitous messages on these issues, coming out of traditional and online media that is corporate-owned, begins to have a saturation effect on voter psychology.  That is, the more we are exposed to the media paradigm on such issues, the more that paradigm shapes our own opinion on them, whether we realize it or not.  The working class, the poor, the small business owner, the various subclasses that comprise the backbone of the voting public and the economy, have scant time to devote to the formation of lucid, informed and personally evolved opinions on these issues.  The default reliance on media sources and the resulting 'conventional wisdom' is too convenient and facilitating to ignore.  As the campaign season hits fever pitch, the advertising, interviewing and news coverage that become the interlocking components of this media paradigm are ingrained into our psyche to the point that refuting the premises of this paradigm becomes a larger and more time-consuming task than simply adopting the media-authored opinion du jour. 

Terms like 'groupthink' or 'psychological warfare' may sound martial and confrontational, but I believe they can be reasonably applied to the strategy and tactics pursued by mainstream media in shaping and directing public opinion on these sensitive, campaign-defining issues.  The resistance or inoculation against the adoption of media-authored opinion is no stroll in the park.  It takes an active, interested and involved political mentality and likely a scientific method applied to opinion-forming that most voters may not have the stomach or time for.  But the alternative is severe and damaging to the social fabric in the long run. 

At the risk of belaboring this point, I'd urge every voting citizen to diligently make time for some cursory research into incumbent and challenging candidates for Congress and local judiciary, and in states like California, to read the fine print on proposition sponsors and funding, to understand at a very elementary level, how a candidate or a proposition is aligned with one's personal beliefs, and to test those beliefs consistently.  We should not be afraid to change our minds, but that change should come from a thorough and comprehensive effort in pursuit of truth, and with the intention of choosing the best available recourse on the issues being decided on Election Day.

2) Besides the subversive 'hoodwinking' attempted by the media on the voting public, our own legislators and administrators are also vulnerable, because of simplicity and access, to substituting poll results and media coverage for an honest and thorough pulse-check on voter sentiment.  Polling has resulted in enough predictive failure over the course of recent American campaigns to be questioned or even outright abandoned as a tool for assessing voter sentiment on a national or regional basis.  Gaffes, from the Dewey election headlines in '48 to exit polls favoring Kerry in Ohio in '04, are indicative of the fatal flaws in polling that skew the facts behind public opinion and will in an overtly fallacious and almost theatrical manner.  The media's urge to claim inside knowledge and subject matter expertise on voter sentiment is an unabashed attempt to control outcome, not report it.  I have yet to understand the purpose of 'calling' elections prior to the closing of polls, as I believe the public is more interested in a true, if somewhat delayed, election result, more than they are interested in projected outcomes based on falsified exit polls or faulty predictive instruments.  The election results that matter are derived from the election mechanisms in place at the state and local levels, anyone else claiming to know or predict the result in advance does no service to the American public, but more than likely does severe damage to the faith and trust Americans have in their electoral system.  If there are legitimate, verified and widespread indications of election fraud, those should be objectively examined for the benefit of the voter.  Any other attempt to prematurely announce the will of the people is both unnecessary and politically disingenuous.

Polling is just one example of how the media attempts to be a 'player' in campaigns and elections, when their role and import should be questioned and scrutinized both by the voter and the campaigner at every opportunity.  Responsible, professional journalism should be relegated to observing and reporting, or face governmental or independent oversight at the behest of the public for unfairly affecting or tainting the will and mandate of the electorate.  Broadcast rights are granted by the people, and if the broadcasts do not serve the interests of the entire voting populace, but rather the whim and fancy of a select few, those rights should also be reviewed and rescinded as appropriate.  The bias, toward either end of the political spectrum, should not bleed its way into the realm of political journalism.  There needs to be a fair, objective and arbitrating role assumed by the media in covering campaigns and elections, and issues that are most prevalent or material to a given election year.  This role has been abandoned by all but a few of the media outlets serving our nation.  And for that reason, the public and the elected government are forced to play in a sandbox that benefits neither.  The public is not served by 10 second sound or video clips supporting the media's view of an issue or candidate, and the candidate is not served by an altered view of the public will as nuanced and distributed by the same self-serving media.  In the end, the nation loses attachment to its soul, as dramatic as that sounds.  The truth muddled, the public jaded, the government duped, the soft control of state policy and legislation is deftly manned by an increasingly powerful and enriched media estate.  This isn't how the nation was born, and it isn't how the nation has strived for over two centuries to be founded on truth and principle.  But we, as voters and ultimate political determinants, cannot relinquish our responsibility to be well-informed, politically responsible and active and above all, sufficiently intelligent about the issues that directly affect us, and how those issues are constantly being morphed and reconstituted against our own interests, and for the benefit of a select and well-heeled set of political manipulators.

I hope to contribute more of my opinion and 'thinking out loud' in future posts, and welcome reader comments and opinions as well.


Raffy J. Ohannesian
Los Angeles, California