This may be a bit more serious than my usual brilliant yet humorous insights. It was inspired by a local newspaper feature in which specific questions are posed to a group of people. The audience is probably not a diverse sample, so it tends to be by my guess a collection of high school students in a parking lot, children at a fair, or folks out of the grocery store. Most of the questions are not particularly worrisome, like “What’s your favorite family Thanksgiving tradition?” It has that spontaneous, unscientific feel to that either puts a smile on your face or in some cases horrifies, much as Jay Leno’s “Person on the street” interviews a few years ago. Here’s a case in point. The reporter asked young people “How often do you watch the news?”. Of the five interviewed, only one did, and it was because his mother put it on. He’d watch with mixed attention. Another got his from Twitter, one watched “Only the important stuff”, and the others pretty much never watched. These are young people rapidly approaching voting age.
Comedian and late night host Stephen Colbert brought the term “truthiness” to the public conscience. It refers to information gives the outward appearance of accuracy and reason, without actually being solidly in the “truth” camp. News networks have been accused of biases on both the left and right, and while this isn’t a political position, I know that I’d like to think what I’m seeing, hearing and reading is at least not a figment of someone’s imagination.
Back in the old days of journalistic integrity, we trusted Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Huntley and Brinkley, and many others. We trusted that they’d done their research and they’d report without prejudice what the evidence told them. Multiple sources, corroborating testimony, documentation. In the era of “conservative” and “liberal” news outlets, “fake news”, and “Media is the enemy of the people”, all of that trust we had for factual reporting is gone. People pick and choose the news that fits their biases and perspectives. My grandfather had a joking expression for this. He’d say, “My mind’s made up – please don’t confuse me with facts.”
Is that the way these young people feel? That news isn’t to be trusted, and therefore it’s better just to avoid any sort of controversy? Are we becoming a nation not only skeptical but suspicious of everyone and everything? Has in fact “truthiness” become a way of life for us?
My feeling is that, to some extent, social media has played an important role in our national distrust. Originally, it seemed to be a great way to reconnect with long lost friends and family. We could see pictures of children and grandchildren, beloved cats and dogs. A branch fell and landed on the garage – oh I’m so sorry for you. It’s too easy to post something as fact, and if it’s repeated forcefully enough, it becomes reality. Political rants became the norm, because, well, nobody was really checking. We see truthiness at its finest every day of our lives: The Affordable Care Act is a communist plot. Tax reform will benefit everyone equally. Climate Change is a theory, not a fact, and there’s no evidence to support it. Polar bears are swimming more because they enjoy the warm water. Immigrants are here to pillage and plunder a helpless population. And they’re taking jobs away from hard-working Americans. A Nigerian prince is waiting to give you money. Your computer has been hacked, and this anonymous voice calling from an anonymous number is here to help. Vladimir Putin’s best people are working on it now. I have a very good shot at winning the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes because I’m in the Presidential Platinum Circle. They tell me I’m only one or two purchases away. Is coffee good for me or not? It must be because it’s sold on every street corner. Plastic or paper grocery bags? (I just use my reusable ones, but now I find they may not be sanitary. Dear God, help me!) We should accept and embrace transgender people, that is until they walk into a bathroom I’m using. Coal is clean, safe, and the wave of the future. In Wikipedia we trust, because we know that every word was thoroughly researched and written by professionals. It’s better for workers if businesses eliminate pensions and set everyone up with the nice matching-funds account. Pharmaceutical companies are plowing all their profits right back into research to make our lives better, so the high costs of prescriptions are fully justified and nobody is making much money here. Gasoline prices are what they are because it’s just the cost of oil exploration, and don’t worry about those oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico – they are perfectly safe.
Much of our news comes in soundbites and snippets. A tweet here, a news alert there. Some detail, a sniglet of information or a headline that grabs our attention. Can’t we take the real news, reading a full newspaper article, so we condense it to a short clip and imagine what the rest must be? Has that great Jack Nicholson line in A Few Good Men, “You can’t handle the truth!” become a reality? Is the economy buzzing along nicely with low unemployment and record corporate profits, or are more trained engineers and doctoral candidates in journalism flipping burgers and unloading trucks at the 7-Eleven? Absolutely nothing wrong with flipping burgers and unloading trucks – they’re needed jobs. But what is the actual story here? Can people live comfortably on a minimum wage or can’t they? Absolutely they can, say the folks that don’t have to.
I used to tell my students to listen carefully and write down what I was telling them – usually important concert or performance information because I was a music teacher. “I know that, in short order, someone will say to me, ‘you never told us that’, or more likely, you’ll pick up bits and pieces of information like a radio broadcast with poor reception, then scramble the details around in your brains, so that what ends up bears scant resemblance to the instructions I gave you.” There are adults like that too out in the real world. Direct, accurate communication is rapidly becoming a lost art, a victim of what sells, what might be believed, and what the listener wants to hear. People are becoming increasingly overwhelmed by issues and information. Some use avoidance as means of defense. If they don’t acknowledge what’s happening around them, it simply doesn’t exist. Others pick and choose the issues and solutions that best fit their views and personal philosophies. Some firmly believe that tariffs will boost all segments of the economy, and is in everyone’s best interests. [Sidebar: These are often the same folks that believe that a recipe for making America great is by bullying and shortchanging every other country. Can anyone really, truly believe that the United States has been getting the short end of the stick all these years? Try out that belief system on a Ugandan, a Haitian or a Guatemalan.]
If we are to function and grow as a civilization, we must be able to read or hear accurate information, discern the inaccurate, and really understand the implications of what we are taking in. This shouldn’t be Victorian England, where the masses work in mostly intolerable conditions, take what they’re given and be happy with it. That whole “Cream always rises” thing was debunked years ago where people are involved. If ours is a democratic society, in which everyone participates, then everyone needs to know how to do that. Having taught people to read and write centuries ago was just the start. Now, we need to make sure that there is truth and integrity in what we’re reading and writing, not just someone’s beliefs and prejudices masquerading as fact. An informed population is a must in 21stcentury America. Expressing differing points of view leads to timely discussions, peaceful resolutions, and possible solutions. We owe it to ourselves to weigh the accuracy and integrity of every piece of information and every base of knowledge upon which we form opinions. Only then can we call ourselves truly informed.
I'm Thinking...No! 