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Dobbs: More Independent Than Ever

Dec-02-2009

The world's first all-news television network is now a much loved part of my past, and it seems like just yesterday that CNN was only one of Ted Turner's mad dreams.

I'm fortunate enough to be one of the band of renegade journalists who helped build and make Ted's dream a reality almost 30 years ago. Since then the world and this country has changed mightily, so has television news, and so have I.

We broke the ABC, CBS, and NBC TV news oligopoly in 1980, and Microsoft and NBC broke our cable news network monopoly 16 years later. And the internet smashed the idea of controlled news coverage or its dissemination. Television news has been forced to change along with the rest of the country, and the world.

I've changed as well, from so-called objective business reporting, to political reporting, to outright advocacy journalism. Over almost three decades, I've had the opportunity to cover double digit inflation, double digit interest rates and a moribund national economy as well as the greatest economic expansion in the world's history, stock markets that have boomed and busted, the return of our hostages from Iran, and the Persian Gulf War, the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union and Marxist-Leninism.

I've covered news, good and bad, on all but one continent in that time.

And I reported as correspondent and anchor, as both a business and general news journalist. The iconic Wall Streeter Felix Rohatyn correctly prophesized that economic journalists would become the modern equivalent of 20th century war correspondents. And so they have. But he left unspoken the obvious corollary: our markets and economies have become battlefields, and while there is little blood, there can be widespread devastation and mind-numbing losses.

In our 21st century political economy, the losses often fall heaviest on the innocent and the unsuspecting. I believe that we live in a critically pivotal time, a period that historians and economists will examine for centuries. The decisions we are making and policies we enact will have a profound impact on our nation and the American people for generations.

This great democratic republic made our capitalistic economy possible, and that free enterprise economy has sustained our way of live for over two hundred years. Our freedom and our capitalism have been the envy of the world, and I believe they have never been more imperiled.

That's why I can't be neutral on the issues that frame our time. And why I'm considering new opportunities, new directions that will allow me to help inform and lead the debate as we rebuild and reinvigorate our national economy. We must figure out how to not only survive and prosper in a more competitive and dangerous world, but to also innovate and create new technologies, but also invigorate and bolster our weakened capitalist system as some seek to destroy it.

I'm excited about our future, and working in a number of areas to overcome the obstacles we face. On my radio show and through other venues, I intend to be a vigorous participant in our national conversation on such issues as the creation of more jobs, sustainable economic growth, the environment, climate change, immigration, health care and military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The complexity of these issues is exacerbated, and in some cases caused by the lack of true representation in Washington D.C. When is the last time you heard a Congressman or Senator, or President, of either party, speak with respect for the "rule of the majority?" Odd that we almost never hear the expression, given that it's the fundamental tenant of our democratic republic. And where are our business leaders, the CEOs of corporate America? Should the Chamber of Commerce really be the proxy for their individual leadership?

We must urgently revive our economy so that it is able to thrive in a rapidly changing global economy where the old rules no longer are in force. This country became a superpower in part because of a strong, hardworking, independent, upwardly mobile middle class. But our middle class has been severely weakened in recent years. Unless it is revived and begins prospering again, we are lost.

We must have a straightforward, informed and realistic discussion debate of the great issues of our time. Whatever direction I choose in the weeks and months ahead, I will certainly be a full participant in that debate. For all our sakes, I hope you will as well.

Posted by Lou Dobbs Staff at 12:02 AM - Link to this entry Share this entry

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