Journalism Prof.: Americans Don't Want Truthful Politicians

Americans don't want to hear the truth from politicians or anyone else because they're afraid their lives will become bad, says Newsmax contributor and journalism professor Jon Friedman of the Stony Brook School of Journalism. 

"We can't handle the truth because the truth is just too real in our lives and people don't want to hear it," Friedman told Ed Berliner on "MidPoint" on Newsmax TV Tuesday. 

"They want it filtered, and they don't want it pure," he added.

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The reason Americans don't really want to hear the truth is because "we're afraid that our lives will get that bad."

"If we know where the economy is going or the stock market, housing prices, or immigration reform or Obamacare, all these buzz words we keep hearing about, can you imagine the panic if people really knew what was going on — that things were going to get worse, not better?"

While Americans may be "burnt out by now on headlines and breaking news," at the same time, "if a politician can feed the voter the appearance of new breaking news all the time, that politician will be ahead of the game."

The reason this works, Friedman explained is that "the media will then think, 'this person is good for my business, I'm getting breaking news here,' and the media will enable this politician by then helping that person become more famous and more popular."

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