by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

As I watch the unfortunate events in Ferguson, Missouri, right after the Grand Jury rendered its verdict, it is sad to see the many minority businesses in Ferguson that were burned to the ground by vandals,”mom and pop”stores that depend on day-to-day business for their survival. The people causing the problems are not demonstrators, they are criminals, people that take advantage of these situations to commit crimes, we see them in every city, anarchist, communist, plain thieves and thugs.They only know one thing, to steal and destroy, they do not respect anybody.

But the media is portraying what’s happening today as a Civil Rights issue, and granted there is still racism in this country,(USA 340 million people of all races, only an imbecile would believe there is no racism) but this is not the 1960’s(after all this country elected its first black President not only once, but twice) and I am old enough to remember the 60’s.

As a teenager in Miami, I used to ride the Miami-Dade County buses, and I saw the signs at the door of the bus that said “colored must seat in back”. As a young teen many times I sat in the back with the black people, in a way as a silent protest. I detest racism, just as much as communism and fascism.

But watching the US media, it is so obvious, that the majority of the media, is very dishonest. Yes, we should care about the loss of Mike Brown’s life in Ferguson, at the hand of Officer Darren Wilson. I was not there as a witness, so I can only go by the decision of the Grand Jury. We are a country of laws, and we must abide by those laws.

I might not like the Stop sign one block from my house, and there is little traffic there, but I stop there all the time. Many young black men are dying victims of crimes in this country. However, the media seldom reports on the dozens and dozens of black kids that are killed by other black kids every day in cities like Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, or the 72% of African-American kids that are born to wedlock. We never see Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson addressing those growing problems. What, they do not count?

Ratings (especially on TV) are paramount for these networks, without ratings there is no sponsors, and no sponsors means no broadcast.

So it is more “sexy”to cover black vs white and white vs black crime, and television in particular, exploit this to the maximum. These shows, in my opinion, are a tremendous dishonesty on the part of the media. Back in the 1970’s I was already doing Sports, but I also covered hard news. I remember in 1974 or 1975 traveling to Salinas, California to interview César Chávez of the United Farm Workers, in one of his famous marches; by the way he was against illegal immigration, he wanted his people/workers to raise their living standard as part of the UFW and I remember he told me illegal immigration was not good, he was running an organization of braceros/migrant workers. I covered many hard news stories like the San Francisco Supervisor Dan White assassination of the Mayor of San Francisco George Moscone, I covered Patti Davis and the SLA, and many other stories during that time.

I am glad I do not cover hard news anymore. Sports offers a different point of view it is pure entertainment, somebody wins, somebody loses every day,(except Fútbol-Soccer and thank God I do not cover that) no controversy there. Politicians “spin”everything, but if the 49ers lose 45-10 nobody can spin that. So, Sports will always have much more integrity.

As I watch this chaos in Ferguson develop I have nothing but dislike for the way most of the media is running this “show”; and I hate to say it, it is only a show for them, the more people are killed the more fires are lit, the more businesses are destroyed, the better television it makes, and the better ratings, sick but nothing but the truth.

CNN goes into “Breaking News” if a cat is on top of a tree in Atlanta, and doesn’t know how to get down. One old saying in television newsrooms I remember as I worked there, has not changed: “if it bleeds it leads”.

I am also old enough to remember when The New York Times was a newspaper of value, of integrity, worthwhile of reading everyday. Today’s NYT is not even a shadow of the NYT of 30 or 40 years ago.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez does News and Commentary for http://www.sportsradioservice.com