Without A Filter: Adopting A World With Unreliable Source
It is difficult to describe exactly how dead quality cable news journalism actually is. It probably started around 1980 when media tycoon Ted Turner decided it would be a good idea to have 24-hours of “news.” Instead of filtering the most relevant news and informing the American public of valuable information, much like we did in the Walter Cronkite days where regular programming would be interrupted in the case of major breaking news stories, today we have totally ripped the filter off.
Think of it like a water filter in a third world country. A filter rids the water of water-borne viruses and lead. The news filter that once existed rid us from trivial campaign “slip-ups” (Obama’s poor bowling score), tragic but repulsively irrelevant local crime stories (“Mother microwaves own baby”), and trial-by-media (character assassination of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich).
Today, we don’t have that filter. The networks tossed it into quality journalism’s coffin. That is not to say there are instances in which these networks do report the news in an acceptable, straight-forward manner. In fact, this is done on a daily basis. The problem is when there isn’t news to report, these networks always seem to find something non-constructive to say or broadcast. Jon Stewart once compared this obsession network anchors have to the bus in Speed – that they will explode if they stop talking.
We turn to cable news the same reason people turn to fast food. It is accessible, requires little or no effort to obtain or consume, but mostly because it gives off the feeling that we consume something healthy and filling when in reality we only strive to obtain it so that we can feel full (or in the news-sense, informed) when we are not.
The worst part of modern day cable news though is undoubtedly the rise of something that describes nearly with perfection how screwed up cable “journalism” is: advocacy journalism. The best examples are found on MSNBC for the liberals and FOX News for the conservatives. How do we expect the media, who interestingly have self-titled themselves our watchdogs, to report facts and give perspective when we know they are supporting an agenda of which the facts may not favor? The answer is we do not, because we cannot.
Not even CNN can rescue us. Where they lack in political bias they make up for by sensationalizing, oversimplifying stories and phrases, and by having Rick Sanchez on the air for way too damn long. When there is time to kill, they make up for it by randomly asking viewers for their “passionate” opinions on abortion, body piercings, President Obama’s “counterfeited” birth certificate and other things that either don’t matter or nobody changes their mind on. They are asked purely to draw visceral reactions from the most news-shallow people. In short, for controversy-stirred, shock value ratings.
This is another detriment of excessive punditry and the reliance on the networks. We begin to lose the ability to think for ourselves. All we hear is every issue dumbed down into a black-and-white matter where only two perspectives are heard, not all perspectives. This is why politicians have to use soaring rhetoric and talk to us like we are idiots during campaigns because anything we know or try to learn about policy or how politics works is either cynically reported by the media or reduced to video clips and soundbites.
Sure, we know and sometimes even complain about the news media. In fact, a Gallup poll conducted earlier this month reported that only 25 percent of Americans have confidence in newspaper and television news. Yet people often forget that all “news” is far from news, especially those that have an unhealthy dependence on receiving information from cable news and other print and online publications.
Despite this, I still find hope when I talk to a surprising number of people who read the news and understand that all stories aren’t crises but more importantly that the world’s events do not coincidentally occur to be understood in 60 seconds.
Then there are bloggers. I will not coat them all the same because there are those who write in the mindset of their own personal and often obnoxious political views and there are others that might be able to even pass as journalists considering the bar has descended considerably. Nevertheless, quality bloggers do exist.
Hopefully as we begin to adapt more to this new wave, it will become easier to identify the credible from the incredible. My hope is that as we evolve, we still can maintain as many identifiable reliable sources of information and not resort to a world where we have to pick our poison.
I stopped watching CNN on a regular basis about a year and a half ago after realizing that watching it for reasons other than for immediate live coverage of big news stories was turning my brain into mush. I also realized that Wolf Blitzer’s voice had this magical ability to hold my attention for an hour between poll closings on election night even though he wasn’t reporting any news, he was merely killing time. Today, I barely even use my TV – something I wouldn’t have fathomed a year and a half ago – and read much of my news online or in papers.
In a world where there are even more people reporting, blogging, shouting the news for and at us, I am encouraging all students this year to think for themselves but only after getting the full story. I encourage students to not believe and willingly absorb everything you hear on CNN in the Student Commons Underground. But most importantly as citizens of a democracy and adopters of an ever-changing world, I encourage students to take the time to get the story straight whether we are writing, reading or deciding between candidates. As Americans, our democracy depends on not just votes, but informed votes and an informed people. As much as we would love to blame politicians, lobbyists, corporations, and even the media, the buck ultimately stops with us.
