Living abroad makes it rather difficult to keep up with the pulse of America. In some ways, it has been a blessing, like during the recession. In other ways, it has been kind-of disappointing, like missing out on the election of our first African American president, or not being in Detroit for the Tigers' pennant run. Sure, we do our due diligence to keep up with the headlines, listen to day-old podcasts from NPR or the like, and watch day-old nightly newscasts or ball games, but none of them can really capture the energy or the national conversation.
What's more, it's increasingly becoming difficult due to the lack of journalistic integrity. The blog-o-sphere is fun, and political commentaries can be interesting, but they don't, nor should they, become a replacement for fundamental journalism. The scary thing about the 24-hour news cycle, radio personalities, and political blogs is that it takes away the individual's ability to decide. Naturally these outlets are opinionated, so we gravitate to what we like. Hearing, watching, or reading opinions that only reinforce our beliefs are nothing less than cowardice if it becomes our sole source of information.
People need facts to generate opinions. We don't need our opinions given to us. And it's getting worse with the ever-dwindling newspaper industry and slow demise of the 7 o'clock national news.
Recently, we heard and read a lot of crazy reporting. Like I said, it's hard to gauge a pulse or accurately read the energy at home, so it has been troubling to read that our nation is turning into a socialist, fascist, communist state ruled by a man not even born in America who wants to set up an agenda based on encouraging people to die. Or so some headlines, podcasts, or cable news clips, might have you believe. Whatever happened to reporting the facts without injecting an opinion?
I suppose it's up to the consumers to search for and demand respectable journalism.
Thankfully, the White House set up a website that we recently discovered to present some facts without the ... ahem ... BS. Here's a tantalizing example given recent 'headlines':
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/7
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Amen to your observations on the state of the news media.
ReplyDeleteI hate being so cynical but should we really have, or can we really trust, a white house run news show touting what the 'truth' is? Can we really say they are any more objective than Bill O'reilly?
To flip it around, if Bush had an internet show during the Iraq war "setting things straight", what would it have done?
Republicans would have said "see, it's all beauty and light", and the democrates would be calling it the Bush propaganda machine.
One problem I see is that most of us are too lazy to actually try to find the truth. We want sound bytes and someone to tell us what to do. It's even true of our government. How many of our elected officials even read the bills they sign into law? How many voters actually read the amendments that they vote on?
I agree, and good point about the White House page.
ReplyDeleteYou know how much I talk up 'The Week' magazine because you can usually count on it to provide both sides talking points - i.e. NY Times and Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, even that is starting to lose it's fruitfulness. The sides have become so polarized and dependent on sound bites that it's virtually impossible to pull out facts.