You deserve congratulations for your courageous editorial of 21 November “ Fourth Estate Falls Down.” You have reminded the press, both print and broadcast, that the primary purpose of the press is to help inform an educated public of the facts they need to manage the direction of their government.

The three or four major TV networks chose to run their usual entertainment programming rather than cover the President’s address on immigration. As a nation of immigrants, one would think that we would take a deep interest in how our federal government chooses to treat today’s immigrant population. Especially important is the overarching question of the roles of our President and our Congress in a government that is nearly paralyzed by partisan politics. However, the TV networks decided that we would rather be entertained than informed on a very important national issue. Maybe they were right in their assessment of our preference.

Certainly the TV networks make a lot more money serving up entertainment than in covering news.

Perhaps the fault is not in the TV stars, but in ourselves. Perhaps we would rather be entertained than have to think hard about the realities of our relationship to each other and to our government. Something seems to have happened in the course of my lifetime to direct the public attention away from the often serious and consequential business of enlightened self-government, in favor of easy entertainment that does not tax us with the task of contemplation and reason. I don’t know what that something is. But I haven’t heard any public outcry over the TV networks’ decision.

Please, would the Times Record follow up on its editorial, and probe what seems to be happening to the public attitude toward news. I hate to see a repetition of ancient Rome and the “bread and circuses” theory of distracting the populace from taking responsibility for their country’s fate.

Daniel Harris
Brunswick