letter to O'Reilly factor

To Whom it May Concern:

I am 27 years old living in San Diego and currently working in sales for a local menswear designer.
I recently watched a clip of Mr. O'Reilly covering the independent media conference being held in Minneapolis.

Although I'm far from proficient in all the themes being addressed, I know the conference is addressing concerns with media consolidation, and corporate interests taking priority over local and individual interests.

Mr. O'Reilly has taken a stance on his show that pits a left against a right. Regardless of partisan or philosophical views on society and politics, there are of course higher moral values that most Americans and most humans would agree upon; compassion, charity, forgiveness, traits of inspirational characters like Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, Albert Einstein, and most widely recognized Jesus Christ.

Greed, judgement, and apathy are of course recognized as negative traits, taught to avoid in so many countries from an early age. Unfortunately, I can't say the same of hatred or racism, a tragic legacy kept burning by the interest of small parties (e.g. al qaeda) with a loud voice.

However, when it comes to entertainment, perhaps it's the negative traits which sell more ad space and increases viewership and subsequently sales increases. And although simple logic I'm still surprised that so many of our corporate governments and in this case the televised voice of the governance can so easily reject or ignore those higher moral values for the sake of profit shares or their own professional security. A personality perhaps initially interested in wider recognition and a simple salary increase ends up teaching our children or the parents of our children poor values: idleness, denigration of differing perspectives, and quick condemnation without clear evidence, as in the case of the media reform conference coverage.

Of course anyone should be forgiven, but they have to quit making the mistake first. How can Mr. O'Reilly or anyone carrying the torch of corporate interests, explicitly putting the share-holders values above the general public, feel comfortable spending time with their children? How can these these corporate share-holders or media representatives feel comfortable exemplifying all these traits that our children are taught in school to frown upon?

All of us have family, people, and a way of life we hold dear to us, all factors greatly influenced by a steady income. Mr. O'Reilly and other polarizing figures of corporate owned media have found a tremendous amount of success in their format and certainly have been able to translate that success into benefits in their own lives and for their loved ones. But at some point your family is counted as the general public, and although you may stay "at the top" for as long as humanly possible, perpetuating these sordid traits and corporate interests will eventually have the negative impact on you as it has on everyone else.

RJ Gordon