What’s your best news source? You!
This is a follow-up to my blog a couple of days after the election when people were wondering where they’re going to get their news now. (I’ve attached the original below.) Now, as the inauguration looms, many on FB are saying things like “thinking people have to stop watching most corporate news en masse” and “I’m going to have to narrow my reading to just a few individuals…” and “listen only to NPR.”
How about encouraging new voices? Or becoming new voices? Even if it’s not you, those new voices are probably going to come from outside corporate spheres, so seek them out and help them along. (It’s be crazy these days to start any type of news service based on the old-fashioned corporate/advertiser based model, yet people continue to do it.)
At the same time: don’t completely give up on mainstream media. Some of the smartest, finest, most scrupulous, most upstanding, most truth-seeking, most kick-ass journalists I know still work in those organizations (’cause that’s where they grew up.) And they should not be condemned for hanging on in there for as long as they can, as a matter of principle and duty. So don’t dismiss what they’ve got to say out of hand. As I’ve said before, while the Internet has led to the mass-dissemination of questionable crap, it’s also made it far easier for you to dig down on your own and decide for yourself on what’s valid and what’s not. So do that, instead of putting your hands over your ears and going ‘la,la,la’ unless it’s Matt Taibbi whispering in them.
A personal note: during the 15 or so years I was at CNN, I would say about twice a year we had someone from corporate or sales approach us and suggest we “adjust” our coverage of something. Sometimes we said yes: that was when it was something we were planning on doing anyway, or something we wanted to do, but didn’t have the money and figured we’d get it if we played along. Most of the time we said no. And 100% of the time that was it. We said no. They went away. We never heard about it again. Why? Because they realized that the saleable product of any news organization is credibility. (Trump does too: that’s why he makes that his point of attack.) The only time a corporation was aggressively interventionist about the editorial content of a program I worked on was at PBS! Surprised?
One of the big problems these days is there is a lot of opinion masquerading as fact. The people who 6 months ago were writing about how Republicans had screwed up so badly that they were going to be wandering in the wilderness for the next 2 decades, 100%, no doubt about it (with many charts and graphs and ‘facts’ to back it up,) are the same people who are now writing about how Democrats screwed up so badly that they are going to be wandering in the wilderness for the next 2 decades, 100%, no doubt about it (with many charts and graphs and ‘facts’ to back it up.) All these people should be fired IMO. There’s nothing wrong with making a mistake: we all do. But making a mistake with such an incredible level of smugness and responding by just doubling down on it? No. This is where editorial oversight is falling short.
So here’s my answer to your concerns (and it hasn’t changed from the first time): just as leaders of nascent protest movements are saying the best way is to start out local, it’s true here too. Don’t STOP reading. START being your own reporter. Even if it’s just for yourself. Or go out and start reporting what’s going on right in front of your nose on the street where you live. Reclaim Facebook or Medium or wherever you choose to post. But you can only do this by getting out from behind your screens and charts and memes. Failure to do so is by-and-large why mainstream media got things so wrong in the first place. And don’t shut yourself off. Encourage new voices. Become a new voice.
