Sometimes I wonder about our society. Whether you get your news from the internet, TV, radio, or newspaper (yeah, they still exist), if you take even a cursory look at the headlines the majority of them are speculative or controversial (and some may even be both). If you can get past the headlines (and that can be difficult) the body of the story is no better. Speculation and controversial statements abound, but facts are in short supply. The truly sad part about it is, you can’t point at just one news company or outlet. Every single one engages in this activity. Personally, I’m expecting to see and hear stories about aliens next.
I remember when I was growing up, my father and I would chuckle while going through the grocery store checkout lines and seeing ‘the National Enquirer’ or ‘Weekly World News’ with their breathless headlines about some movie star’s ‘secret love child’ or ‘aliens meeting with the President’ (those tended to be my favorite if for no other reason than it was so out there and unbelievable). If you remember not too long ago, the Enquirer actually broke a news story about a politician’s affair and love child (it probably helped the subject of the story was in their wheelhouse). Can Weekly World News be far behind?
We have the ability to choose in this country where we get our information. We can also choose what information is important to us. Want to know the latest sports scores or news? Then you can go watch any (or all) of the ESPN channels or any of the other myriad of sports networks out there (to show my age, I remember when the first ESPN channel came out, and they weren’t sure it would catch on because the concept of a channel showing ‘only sports’ was unheard of). Maybe you want to know the latest gossip about actors or other celebrities? You’re definitely in luck there. Between blogs and entertainment sites your head can be full of that kind of stuff in seconds. But what about straight-up news? The Joe Friday ‘just the facts’ type of thing? They do exist, but you have to be ‘vewwy, vewwy careful’, to paraphrase Elmer Fudd. The latin phrase ‘caveat emptor’ (let the buyer beware) is an understatement at best. Biases, agendas, and who knows what else can lurk just below the surface of any site proclaiming to provide you ‘the news’. And those not careful end up hearing the agenda rather than the information.
I know the media companies are a business. And businesses exist to profit their owners and shareholders. Any benefit we as the consumer get is secondary at best (I know, I know, I’m being overly generous). When you look at how much of each different information category is out there, it’s sad. Apparently we find it infinitely more important to know the latest rumors about entertainers and politicians than to know the facts about issues and be able to be informed. You can scream all you want about how the government, secret cabals, etc., are using media and information to ‘dumb us down’ and ‘make us their slaves’, but I ask you to think about it. The sites and information is out there because WE as a society asked for it. WE asked to hear/see about these things. Maybe WE need to figure out why we say these things are so important. Then maybe WE can change what is presented to us and how.
