The news is coming to us hot and heavy these days. There is scandal after scandal, outrage after outrage. The media playbook treats it all as a way to build audience, and raise ratings (and revenue) by polarizing opinion.
Conflict sells.
Here’s what the Republicans say; here’s how the Democrats respond. Obama is good; Obama is bad. So and so says this; so and so fires back Its mostly heat, not light.
There are rarely any other views, or ways of understanding events presented.
News programs are the new wrestling shows, a noisy battleground, in the morning, on the Sunday shows, and all day long on cable networks. The goal is not to explain, probe, or ask questions.
No, its to squeeze a repetitive and narrow narratives into a morality play that provokes as much emotion as possible.
Its been said we live in an era of “missing information” and the news is the best arena that defines it—not by what’s being reported, but how its being reported, and mostly by what’s not being reported.… Read the rest
