During the past week, I have encountered three separate individuals, two who live out of state and one locally, who have said they no longer read or listen to the news.
One person said they instead watch the old vintage Andy Griffith Show, another said she goes to the beach in her free time and sits in quietness, and the other person said he just simply could no longer “do” the news.
Inspired, I decided that, although I had stopped watching television news several years ago, I would also now refrain from reading Google headlines on my computer—something I usually do every morning as I sip my coffee.
I am on day three of not scanning and reading Google headlines and I must say, I don’t miss it.
Not at all.
In fact, it’s much easier than I had anticipated. Which surprised the news junkie in me.
What I perceive that myself, and those I have met who are dieting from the high stress calories of an incessant news feed, have discovered is that, news, as it is today, has morphed into something quite foreign to those of us born pre-1990’s.
To me, as I hold a journalism degree obtained way back in 1986, news is an entirely different animal today. The “who, what, why, when and where,” and the “just the facts” and “objectivity is non-negotiable” are dinosaurs.
I once emailed a news director of a local radio station to discuss the slang used in one of his correspondent’s “news” reports, which led to a discussion of objectivity and the five “W’s.” The director’s response:
“Nobody does it that way anymore.”
Indeed.
We see it all around. I’ve overheard several people commenting on how they have fallen for “click bait,” that sly luring of the reader in to a news article that, in the end, has little in common with its headline.
Integrity has become, I observe, an elective, and at times, held as a detriment by the powers-that-be to beating out the competition for “clicks” and television ratings.
Sensationalism isn’t just for the National Enquirer or Star Magazine any more.
The news as relayed today, instead of encouraging how to think about the world, is now all about manipulating the public into what to think, period.
And while all news isn't poorly reported, it has become narrow so that feeds such as Google pre-select and prioritize what they think we want to see--and so that is what we see--skewing our perception of what is actually taking place in the wider world, and leaving meatier, deeper and more relevant coverage out.
Again, my reason for signing off. I don't want Google to decide what I read or mislead me into thinking my feed is a realistic reflection of humanity.
While I tend to think the downward spiral of integrity in journalism began with CNN’s inauguration of the 24-hour news cycle, who knows how the zeitgeist of any one time period influences the general tenor of publicly produced information.
When people are stressed, as it seems they increasingly are (or maybe we are just led to believe that by what we read in the news) they seem to gravitate to even more stress: hence, the getting caught up in whatever mess is being promulgated on social media and television.
Maybe it gives folks a sense of self-importance to then repeat, enlarge-upon and opine about all they are seeing and reading online and on TV. And so the initial message is passed around and commiserated over as if we all have nothing better to do.
Eventually, this riding upon the speeding train of incessant and exaggerated, dramatized and agendized “news” produces varying levels of anxiety, and also, I believe, increased hatred towards those we read about (especially politically).
This hatred is brewed through the drip drip drip of flawed, one-sided and non-objective reporting, or obsessing over specific stories in the glee of freudenshade (lest we blame the media for this, are we, as the audience, also guilty of obsessing in warped glee over the demise of someone else? I can answer “yes” to that).
I hear it more and more: people are so quick to find fault, to be mean, to force their thinking upon others, and not willing to allow others to own opposing opinions, or better yet, actual facts. These tougher-than-nails town criers are ironically the very ones most offended when others behave the same towards them.
The diatribes, half-truths, blatant falsifications and selectivity in highlighting the negative and dramatic will no doubt continue to ramp up.
But we don’t have to be a part of it, or give it permission to turn us into the same.
Oh, I’m very well aware that my not Google-newsing it won’t make one bit of difference in the wider scheme of things. It’s not like I’m aiming to have any impact whatsoever on the world of journalism and social media by opting out.
All I can control—all I have ever been able to control—is what goes into my heart and mind, and what comes out.
And stepping away from the daily news feed (and any other media culprits that make life more complicated than it has to be or would otherwise be), and all the baggage which accompanies, doesn’t mean I’ll be less informed (again, reading and watching the news hardly guarantees we will be wisely and factually informed), it means I’ll not give permission for misinformation and pre-selected and pre-prioritized stories and topics to enter in.
It means instead of obsessing over what others tell me to think, I’ll give time and credence to how to think about what I choose is actually important, not what the talking heads proselytize and attempt to corner me into.
Copyright Barb Harwood
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