The Idea of It...

As you all know I dropped watching most news in June. Dropped news programs and political figures from my Facebook feed as well. And I didn't pick them back up in July. And I don't think I'll pick them back up in August either. 

I really miss the idea of it.

But I don't miss it.

I like being well informed. It's actually really important to me. I want to understand issues and why I should or should not believe certain things. But the news doesn't really help there. They are all about ratings and market share and eyeballs and advertising revenue and the way to get that is to inflame emotions not to appeal to rationality. It used to be that there was less of that. But it works, so the sources that weren't giving you your opinion instead of just flat facts did not get the views and the numbers that the emotional driven shows and print pieces were getting. 

What sells is what gets produced. Even where news is concerned.

I don't want that sort of infotainment. 

I'm still keeping half an eye on Jessica Yellin and her News not Noise feed. I feel like she's giving me a lot of good topline information. And I read Heather Cox Richardson daily to see the historical echoes of current activities. Though I am amused by the comments section on HCR's posts. Almost daily there is someone who posts about how much they appreciate that she gives the facts without being biased. Then someone else comes in to blast them about that saying that she's completely biased, there are no facts! And the argument is on!

Which is stupid. She's both. She gives facts, she gives history, she gives nothing that isn't true. And she also is biased and has a point of view she is supporting and often editorializes with her own opinion. All of us do this. All of us have bias. The thing that we as a society have gotten away from is that you don't have to be unbiased to be factual. You don't have to lack an opinion to talk about facts. Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean you aren't telling the truth. But we've gotten to the point that we think "I wish that wasn't true" or "I really don't like this" are the same as "FAKE NEWS!" They're not. 

I am a hard core liberal. I believe in certain things. I want certain things for our country. That's my bias. But when I say that Joe Biden is president, that's a fact, even though he's a democrat so he aligns with some of my biases, it's still a verifiable fact. I know that there is a certain percentage of our population that doesn't agree with that. That's their bias. BUT...it doesn't make it untrue. 

This disregard of facts has been coming for a long time. There has been a concerted effort by certain groups to turn us into science deniers so they can continue to operate unfettered by regulations. And once you start to deny science in one area you are much more likely to deny it in others. So now we have a large group of people who aren't getting the vaccine. And won't wear masks. And believe that the whole Corona Virus thing is not a big deal, even though we've lost hundreds of thousands of people in our country alone and millions world wide. But, yeah...

And the news doesn't help fix those issues. They will put on people who espouse those views as if they should get equal representation. And you get people arguing that they should get all the facts and be able to make up their own minds and how dare anybody say what is and what isn't a fact, they can figure that out for themselves. And, well, they can't. They don't know the difference between anecdotal evidence and peer reviewed double blind studies. They don't understand statistics and that 90% chance of something means 10% chance of not that thing. But that 10% is MUCH less than 90% so... They believe in their feelings very strongly and disregard any fact that might contradict those feelings. And then claim that their feelings are facts and they are just as right as everyone else. 

The news likes to blast click bait headlines but the problem is people have stopped clicking. The bait is all they see. And they form their whole position based on the sensational bullshit headline you put out there. And will tell you that the Washington Post said...blah blah blah...and it's because they only saw a headline. That was a bullshit headline and didn't actually agree with the article, but hey, the Post got a few more eyeballs that day.

Then you get talking heads who are "just asking questions" because "just stirring the shit" doesn't sound as good. And they know that using weasel words keeps them out of litigation (or in Fucker's case lets his lawyers make the argument that nobody would actually take him seriously) but his and other talking head's audiences do take them seriously. They think those questions are statements of fact. They entrench around bad faith arguments and when you try to give them facts they tell you that your facts are not facts and only what THEY want you to believe.

And then, heaven forfend, when a new discovery is made that changes old recommendations it's used as "proof" that they were right and the whole scientific community was wrong. Well...no. That's how science works. It keeps investigating and discovering and changing. That's part of the process. When you get new information sometimes that changes what you thought the conclusion was. It's actually how you know things are working.

And I totally get it, there are things we all thought we knew as a fact that were actually lies and distortions told to us to get us to believe certain things, or buy certain things, or act certain ways and so we are all primed to not believe things we don't want to. Which is where having a solid news organization would come in handy. 

One that only reported the facts and left it up to you how to feel about those facts. 

But we don't have that. 

I don't miss watching the news and reading the news. 

But I do miss the idea of it.