I understand that making a living and selling a story is at the top of every journalist's list. I understand that what the public wants to read is not always what the public needs or deserves to read. We buy the magazine with the topic "Jolie, pregnant again!" on the cover before we buy The New York Times. I understand that this will probably never change. I think that Americans are so caught up with the idea of entertainment, that the important stuff seems to dwindle to the bottom of the stack. However, I believe that reporters should hold their morals a little bit higher. There needs to be a higher standard for what is put on the cover. The public deserves more and reporters should bite the money bullet and do what is morally right. Ask themselves the question "Does the public really need to know this?" before reporting on it. Reporters will sit out front of the home of a British, American Idol's home and bully her about whether she will make a CD before sitting out front an important government worker's home bullying him/her about the actions that are being made on the Obama health care plan. Privacy is hardly ever respected and reporters will put a picture of Brittany Spears' vagina on the cover of a magazine and no one will sue, but when a 14 year old downloads a song because he/she doesn't have the money to buy it... all hell breaks loose. Our priorities are mixed up. At the beginning of Chapter 14, the book describes Nellie Bly and her efforts to expose different businesses, organizations, etc. She was respected and honored. People trusted her and realized the difference she was making in society... what happened to that kind of reporting? "We need to see people not as readers, non-readers, endangered readers, not as customers to be wooed or an audience to be entertained, but as a public, citizens capable of action." --Davis "Buzz" Merritt, Wichita Eagle, 1995. This quote from the book says exactly what the public wants journalists to understand and take action on. This leads one to question how the public will handle and react to the truth. We have already seen how people can blame movies, music, and other forms of entertainment as the cause of epic murders and mass killings. Chapter 15 talks about how people are blaming entertainment as a cause of unspeakable behavior. If the media begins to show the honest truth, the deaths, the lying, the killing... What will the public begin to think of the government and even man-kind. Will we have more copy cat killers like the Virginia Tech student who thought of the Columbine killers as idols? Will there be more suicides like the Rutgers student? If we put all of the unsightly information out there, what will be the effects of it? Maybe people will become more giving. If the pictures of poverty from the U.S. and world wide are constantly shoved in our faces, will the Peace Core volunteers increase? We wouldn't be able to change the channel like all of us do when the adopt a poor, starving kid from Africa commercial comes on. It could be beneficial to mankind to show more of mankind.