Madden's sense of purpose

Frenzied speculation on Sunday Night Football about how the NFL would punish Terrel Owens after a spitting incident roused John Madden's sense of purpose. To paraphrase, "this is not what the NFL is about. Great games and who is going to the playoffs, that is what this game is about. What has happened to us?"

This affair illustrates that media failure is not only the result of bias. You can ascribe our sorry "national dialog" to the media, but their lack of seriousness is as much a cause as their bias. Terrel Owens' spitting does not play into anyone's political agenda and helps illustrate the point. For whatever reason, media cultures seem to generate into gossip, he-said-she-said and gotcha reporting instead of focusing on what matters. Instead of reporting about Social Security the media regurgitates catty, distorted, vague pronouncements by politicians about Social Security.

Intellectual sloth and lack of purpose are a cause of the media's folly. To inform yourself about, think through and explain Social Security or the Cowboy's passing game takes study, attention, intellectual effort and purpose. Paying attention to what titillates you does not.

Information flow within most every segment of our society is mediated by people with, well, a journalistic lack of purpose and intellectual sloth.

Addressing this problem, holding journalists to account not just for their ethics and fairness, but also for their level of seriousness is a major challenge for achieving a healthy, thriving society.