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musings, thoughts, and writings of Barbara W. Klaser


May 16, 2007

Judging the news

I’ve never been much for reading or watching the news, especially when I was younger. I used to catch criticism for not doing the grownup thing — watching the news or reading the paper as much as everyone else did. I managed to keep up with most of the important news, but I noticed early on that the news upset me, a lot. It got me worked up about things beyond my control, and raised my overall fear and frustration level, without giving me all the facts, or any resolution. It’s possible this news avoidance started when I had a brother serving in Vietnam and saw war news every night during the dinner hour. Maybe it began even earlier. But those negative side effects of the news stayed with me and seemed to outweigh or play down the benefits of keeping up with every little thing presented as news.

When I worked, as a student, in a public library that carried several different newspapers (one of my jobs was placing newspapers on those sticks that hung on racks), I quickly got the idea that different newspapers had different slants, just as my journalism teachers had told me. But back then those slants were less obvious.

The news today isn’t what I learned it should be in junior high and high school journalism. I learned in those classes (the most recent in the early 1970s) that journalism was a format that could inform and educate, or misinform and manipulate. But, I was told, the most ethical journalists and news sources attempted to be more balanced and factual. More and more today, I think we’re simply manipulated by the news. It’s less about the facts, and more about opinion, speculation, or passing judgment. Every news source seems to have its bias, whether toward liberal or conservative politics, toward or against religion, science, environmental concerns, current business and economic influences, and so forth. It resembles what I learned was yellow journalism or propaganda, back in school. I’ve also noticed, as I look back, that nearly all my life even the most factual news has been about carefully selected facts. There was always something left out. And it’s what people don’t say that often carries the kernel of truth.

For instance, I learned recently that modern news sources sometimes almost completely ignore a candidate in their presidential election coverage. (Look up Larry Agran, who ran in the Democratic primaries in 1992 to learn just how effectively the news media can marginalize a candidate.) In what we consider a democracy, we depend perhaps too much on news coverage to provide us balanced information to draw on when we vote. In our desire for a convenient source of information, we fail to realize news coverage can be lax, and even manipulative.

I’m not going to criticize any particular news source here, though I could mention several, probably some that you and I both attempt to learn from or rely on for facts. There are few that seem to provide objective news anymore. The other night I watched what appeared to be in-depth coverage of a recent minor political intrigue, in which a journalist used judgmental terms to describe what had occurred. I thought the events and facts could stand for themselves, with the viewer left to judge, if enough facts were given. Instead the reporter made judgments for us.

What I take issue with the most is something I see in nearly every news source I’m familiar with: News reporting with strong emotional hooks that get people worked up, but barely scratch the surface of fact. This kind of reporting doesn’t lead us to a resolution or even a path toward solutions — which could be gained simply by providing more information in a balanced, responsible way, about news that really matters, then letting the viewer or reader make up his own mind. Even when we’re presented with straight news rather than opinion, even when journalists don’t judge or speculate about the background or outcome of an event, even when they’re not reporting on Paris Hilton’s or Britney Spear’s latest exploits instead of a newsworthy event — even then, these emotional hooks leave me with little wonder that many people today are too stressed by the “news” to think straight or take charge of their own lives, let alone vote or spend intelligently and responsibly.

Is anyone else increasingly dissatisfied with news coverage? Is it any wonder newspapers are folding, or that with more television channels than ever, there’s less news worth watching? Does anyone else think the news anchors sometimes seem less informed than we who bother to read rather than just rely on their reports? Do you think that TV news networks are less involved with reporting the facts, and more involved with increasing our culture’s adrenaline addiction and steering popular opinion in particular directions?

The only thing that keeps me a bit more interested in the news today than when I was younger is the Internet. When I see superficial or emotionally involving coverage by the media on something that interests me, I can read several more perspectives on it, if I do some judicious research of my own. One needs to exercise skepticism when reading on the Internet. Even edu sites are sometimes suspect sources these days. But once I locate a few different and disparate sources of a particular story, it’s easier to find the thread of truth in the news than when I depend on a single newspaper or TV source for coverage. Some news that’s important to me is missed entirely by mass media, or the media is slower to respond to it.

But researching the news on the Internet takes time, more time than I usually have, and more time than many people are willing or able to put in. That leaves us with the more convenient “professional” news sources, which I find more suspect and less responsible than ever.

— Barbara @ 8:14 pm PST, 05/16/07

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8 Comments

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  1. 1.

    I continue to read far too much news, even though it upsets me, and for no good reason because there’s nothing I can do about what’s going on in this country and around the world. But the news is always there on the internet so I read it.

    It seems to me that journalists have mostly abandoned their ethics and professionalism, forgotten what their jobs are. News is designed to garner advertising revenue rather than the truth. I’m sure that Nixon and his band of crooks would have gotten away with Watergate easily today. Heck, Bush and his gang have gotten away with far more than Nixon ever attempted but today the press doesn’t really investigate like it used to. If it weren’t for the internet, where information can be disseminated by non-professionals or by journalists who work outside the biggest media conglomerates and still retain some ethics and courage, forcing the national press to at least mention certain things, we’d probably be given no news at all.

    I guess I don’t have to mention Fox which is a US version of the old Soviet Pravda, simply a party organ. I mean it is run by the former head of the Republican party! Having grown up in an era when Pravda was held up to ridicule and scorn it amazes me to see exactly the same form of propaganda accepted by so many people in this country.

    One thing that irritates me is how journalist avoid any responsibility for sorting verifiable truth from propagandistic lies. It isn’t being balanced to present both sides of an argument equally when one side presents facts and the other is spouting palpable lies. Lies don’t deserve equal time with truth. The far right has taken advantage of this lapse of journalistic judgment incessantly.

    Comment by Eric Mayer — May 17, 2007 @ 8:16 am

  2. 2.

    I’ve pretty much given up on conventional news sources except for things
    like who died, what’s happening (superficially) with the weather, and what
    day it is. More news comes to me these days through blogs (always slanted)
    and books (always in retrospect), so in fact I really don’t know what’s going on. It seems to me, at this late point in my life, if it’s human, it’s not
    objective. It’s true that in earlier years, it seemed more objective, but if you look at history, there were just as many lies told then as now…or just as many truths untold. It’s the human failing, I think. That’s why ferreting out the truth is such an art. God has a wicked sense of humor. Yes, She does.

    Comment by Beverly Jackson — May 19, 2007 @ 2:33 am

  3. 3.

    I think that it is really important to read all sorts of news outlets, etc. and get information from a variety of sources and make a ’somewhat’ informed decision about how we see events in the world. It is frustrating but allows you to see more aspects of the world and all the people and how they are thinking. John (my husband) is a news-a-holic. We get the NY Times and the Oregonian at home. He reads the political blogs. He is very involved with the Democratic Party and hears the talk going around with the insiders. My hubby even watches Fox News to see what they are saying, then reads other outlets to see where Fox is slanting their news/getting it wrong/getting it right. I rely on him alot to understand the really complicated things.

    Comment by violetismycolor — May 19, 2007 @ 9:15 am

  4. 4.

    I follow all that and agree. An “at length” perspective is best. At least we are (I hope) intelligent enough to recognize the ploys which greet us on the news channels every day. But over saturation, including talk radio. In the end, what can we personally do about civilizational conflicts or reprehensible behavior on the part of leaders? Not a lot.

    So best not to twist oneself into early cynicism.

    Comment by Creechman — May 20, 2007 @ 5:05 am

  5. 5.

    Operation Mockingbird. Look it up.

    Comment by Ken — May 21, 2007 @ 10:33 am

  6. 6.

    I agree that the news is manipulative and I avoided it for years, just glancing at headlines or overhearing conversation. I think Vietnam scarred us all in our generation. In addition, I kept wanting to say, “There must be more sides, more facets. What is there that you’re not telling us?”

    But recently, on the Web, I have found 2 or 3 sites which gather news from different sources and present it in logical format. Also, I have begun to read The Week, which is a news magazing, which writes about news from a global perspective, and for hot topics, presents several viewpoints in a point/counterpoint format. I’m sure there is still much we don’t know, but I feel that if we’re going to blow ourselves to Kingdom Come, I’d like to know what happened along the way. I’d like to think I knew what the issues were and made an effort to do something to ameliorate the evil and ignorance.

    Comment by Sarah — May 22, 2007 @ 7:21 pm

  7. 7.

    Like really, the only news I believe is like stuff I read about Paris Hilton… and like who cares…

    Comment by Reenie — May 26, 2007 @ 3:30 am

  8. 8.

    The reporting of the news media has always upset me. I live near a large city, and if I watch the local news, I get to hear how many people were killed the night before, or how many died in a fire or car accident. So I don’t watch it.

    I do like to know something about what’s happening, and I must say, I get most of that information right from my computer - the internet, and also from bloggers.

    Cas

    Comment by cassie-b — May 27, 2007 @ 5:48 am

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