The President of the United States, this past week, went on TV to announce his plan for immigration, a hot button topic in today’s politics, a topic used to excite the Tea-Party-racist element in the Republican party. I watched the video clip from the C-SPAN web site, and it was a thoughtful; program, where he balanced the need to enforce the laws and maintain a credible immigration system, while showing compassion to persons who crossed the border, bereft of documents, who just want to attain the American dream; so many of them are working for it, and I mean WORKING, by cleaning hotels, picking produce in farms, and building houses, all under the table, all without legal help.

How-EV-er, the news media-ABC, CBS, NBC, and definitely Fox-would not, NOT, broadcast the speech-the same “left-liberal-slanted news media” of far-rightist folklore. Several stations, on their own, circumventing the networks, broadcast it, as did CNN, C-SPAN, Univision, Telemundo, and PBS; plus there was the official White House web site, whitehouse.gov.

WHY? Why did the news networks refuse to broadcast the speech of the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES? Several things come to mind-racism, the rage the a BLAKC man is in the White House, along with not offending the Republican Conservative element in Congress. In spite of the rhetoric of the Right, the commercial news media, accepting conventional wisdom, errs to the conservative side; these networks and other media corporations are just another group of multi-billion dollar corporate bureaucracies.

SO, we have two facts here-the disconnect from reality of the political right-wing movement, which ignores reality, both contemporary and historical, in its activism and speeches; and the uselessness of the corporate broadcast media in putting forth reality, and alternative opinions that would offend powerful interests. The internet, public access TV, and other forms of alternative media need to be supported and used, along with the corporate news outlets, which provide a baseline-the alternative media is a different perspective and some extra information.