Opinion : Hard choices vs. easy news

The pundits are often saying that politicians are letting us down because they fail to make the "hard choices." Energy policy. Fiscal policy. Middle East policy. These are difficult issues. And many in the media (including me) have been known to rebuke our political leaders for failing to make the hard choices necessary to honestly and completely address these issues.

But the news of this week illustrates in a painfully clear way that we, the media, are just as guilty (or worse) when it comes to avoiding the hard choices.

A few days ago, President Barack Obama said that America's policy -- in a change from the previous administration's -- is to urge Israel to go back to its 1967 border.

In the days that followed that speech, we have had very little in the way of news stories that explain what (and where) the 1967 border is, why President Obama wants Israel to live by those 1967 borders, and how that proposal would change Israel or the Middle East peace process.

Instead, our media, from the national broadcasts to our local TV and radio stations, have been spending more time talking about the latest nonsensical "prophecy" about the end of the world.

Why do those in charge of bringing us the most important news choose to talk or write about the rapture rather than the 1967 border (or oil prices or the budget or any other significant issue)?

Simply because it's easier.

Putting together a story about some guy's prediction of judgment day is easy. All you have to do is repeat what the goofball said, and ask a few "experts" or "men on the street" for their opinion.

But writing about the 1967 border of Israel is complicated, difficult stuff. Your average journalist is just as ignorant about this topic as your average American. There are a thousand difficult questions for us to ask when it comes to Israel, the first of which is: How can a piece of land as tall as Iowa and as narrow as Benton and Linn Counties put side by side cause thousands of years of war, turmoil and debate around the entire world?

Earth includes 197,000,000 square miles; Israel takes up approximately 10,000 of them. If Israel was 200 times larger than it is, it would still make up only 1 percent of the earth's area. And yet you can be sure that way more than .005 percent of the world's conflict have been in, near or because of the "Holy Land."

But instead of asking questions and looking for answers and solutions to the crisis in Israel, the modern media spent the week following a significant speech on the issue by focusing instead on some ridiculous prediction.

You deserve better than that . We can do better. But if history is any indication, we probably won't.