THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 28, 1996 TAG: 9601260245
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Ronald L. Speer
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
Last Sunday I flicked on the television set half a dozen different times, to half a dozen different channels, and each time I was overwhelmed by nationally known men and women carefully dissecting one of the big issues of the day.
They went on for hours, these folks whose names are household words, making sure there wasn't an American alive who didn't know all the ins and outs of the issue.
They were waiting on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and Saturday, leaping into action every time I turned on the tube.
The nation's newspapers and magazines also zeroed in on the subject, their finest writers cranking out millions of words every day and their most famous photographers making hundreds of pictures to help tell the story. I don't like to brag, but The Virginian-Pilot was right up there with the best of them, devoting a whole section of the paper to the issue every morning, day after day.
Psychiatrists weighed in, and so did politicians. Business people made their pitch. Cameras captured the reaction of Americans in all walks of life.
Even the unenlightened people who don't care a fig about the issue were given an opportunity to have their say.
The power of the press may not be what it once was, but when the newspapers and television and radio stations and magazines pollsters and national networks agree that an issue needs in-depth coverage, the people of America can't help but know what's happening and what ought to be done about it.
And the word has spread far beyond our national borders, to outposts in the jungle, oases in the desert, igloos in the Artic, war-torn villages, the Outback of Australia, taverns in Tahiti, the steppes of Russia.
With such a brilliant spotlight shedding light, it would seem that the most troublesome of problems could be solved.
By drawing literally billions of people drawn into an issue, surely we could find a way to end the drug problems that are destroying America.
Millions of people united in a cause could surely find a way to feed the hungry of the world.
With the national media exploring every avenue, we could surely ease the problems created by the ever-growing number of single-parent households.
A steady drumbeat of that magnitude focused on disease could surely result in cures for AIDS and cancer and the common cold.
If everyone in America was given such a through look at tax problems, our leaders surely could be guided toward an equitable solution to our jury-rigged system of raising money for government needs that often leaves some of our richest neighbors getting more kickbacks than any ADC recipient.
No problem would seem to big to solve if we all spent nearly every minute of our life for a couple of weeks focused on a single issue.
The solution might come from an Ocracoke waterman, a nurse in Elizabeth City, a single mother in Edenton, a bank president in Currituck or a cowboy in Nebraska.
They can't help but have opinions about the current issue explored by the media in the past couple of weeks, explored like no other subject since last January.
Yep, if America's media mogols decided to join forces to make America a better place, it would be.
In the meantime, that coordinated, unified, incomparable effort by America's media has provided me with more information about wide receivers and tight ends and defensive tackles and Deion Sanders than ever I hoped.
And tonight, it all comes to a head when couch potatoes around the globe find out whether Pittsburgh or Dallas has the best gladiators.
Is this a great country or what? by CNB