I was reading an article (probably on HuffPo) where they interviewed a journalism professor or some such thing, asking why it is "the media," which I would not confuse with "the press," hasn't taken Donald Trump to task over, well, anything. They don't question his history and character as a business man, they don't ask how he could possibly do any of the nonsense he says he'll do, they don't ask how his foreign policy (or lack thereof) could possibly work. Most importantly, they don't take him to task about being a loud mouth that panders to fear and anxiety.
I've said this before, and I still believe that it's true: Journalism still exists if you're willing to look for it. The Internet offers unprecedented opportunity for it, even. However, being a journalist, fact checking and doing the work is not easy, or cheap. This is why I've always been suspect of "citizen journalism." A lot of what we label as such seems intended more to incite mobs than to find truth. Reporting is hard, issues can be complex.
The last part is where I shift responsibility away from the nebulous media, and squarely in the lap of John Q. Voter. We don't hold our media or our politicians to any standards. That a reality TV star can gain traction in a primary says as much about our culture as it does the sad state of the GOP. If we're content to watch partisan talking heads and call it "news," we're screwed. Yet people aren't interested in complexity, or nuance.
I don't know what we can do about that. Telling people that they're stupid or wrong never changed any minds. Oddly, changing your mind about something is viewed as weakness now, even though it's the very thing that makes adults be grownups. And yet, people don't want more data, they just want to believe what they want to believe. That's weird, because few things have been more freeing in my life than accepting that I don't have all of the answers.
This is one of those things that I try not to trouble myself with that much, because it's frankly a little depressing. I know people are better than that, but they're so disengaged, probably for the same reasons I am.
No comments yet.