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Friday
March 29th, 2024
L&T Opinions Page

earl watt mugL&T Publisher Earl Watt

 

I read a lot of political columnists. A lot. I read some that share my political views, and I read just as many that don’t. It is real easy to tell which are genuinely trying to persuade with facts and which are trying to manipulate on both sides.

And to a limited degree, that’s fine. They are columnists, and there is more flexibility in opinion to stray in an effort to make a point.

But that is not supposed to be the case in news reporting.

In that case, there is supposed to be virtually no wiggle room from the facts, and there is an additional responsibility to seek out multiple viewpoints when discussing policy issues.

I constantly have to correct readers when referring to an editorial or column as an “article.”

There is a big difference between a news article and an editorial.

When reading today’s news from the fewer and fewer corporately owned outlets for information, I can see why it is difficult to know the difference.

News sources don’t care about journalistic ethics or integrity. They only care about appealing to a certain audience and earning ad dollars. It’s no longer about the legitimacy of a story but the ability to bankroll the presentation of news into a billion dollar empire, and they have done it well.

Throw in the absurdity of social media that some consider “newsworthy” posts, and you have a country one edge and at each other’s throats, one misplaced molotov cocktail away from an all-out civil war.

WHAT THE MEDIA GETS WRONG

The No. 1 way to tell you are not getting objective news is when they only provide one side of the issues. For example, if they always share how well the president is doing, or if everything the president does is one step closer to armageddon, it’s a bad news source.

No president has yet to be the anti-Christ, but they have all been accused of it.

Barack Obama was not the evil man he was painted to be, and neither is Trump. We each may have different reasons for disliking their policies, maybe even their personalities, but when news outlets get involved as if those are justified positions, we have lost our objectivity.

If you can name a news outlet that only criticizes and never praises any effort made by a president, it is not a reliable news source. Likewise, if a news source only cheerleads for a president, it is not a reliable news source.

When news agencies line up guests to rip the president, and they have a long line of them in a row — not reliable. Same thing with cheerleaders.

 

ARGUMENTS RATHER THAN NEWS

The next mistake the media makes is when they do have alternative views, they bring both guests on at the same time.

What happens? We get two people arguing, talking over each other and very little substance for the viewers to use to form their own views.

The proper way to have two different guests with opposite views is to have an objective, respected journalist ask tough questions of the first guest, thank them, shut off their mic, and then ask tough questions of the second guest.

If they want to have a follow up with only one mic working, fine. But two guests of opposite viewpoints should never be allowed to talk over one another. If you watch news that allows this, it is not reliable. They are baiting you in to watch the car wreck rather than the race, and you should reject it.

 

STACKING PANELS

Many news outlets love to have panel shows, but they don’t have balanced panels. CNN loves to have liberal panels with a token conservative, and FOX New has a conservative panel with a token liberal.

It’s not fair, reasonable or balanced.

Stacking panels allows the source to reach a specific audience and keep them happy by presenting an unrealistic view of the facts by showing multiple supporters and limited detractors, creating the illusion that the popular position is the one they want to convey.

 

NEWS vs OPINION

There are just as many, if not more, commentary and opinion shows on news networks than there are straight news.

That’s fine as long as you know that Sean Hannity and Anderson Cooper are not news reporters. They are opinion staff, and their job is not to inform you, it is to convince you. There’s a big difference between the two.

 

THE PEOPLE’S ROLE

Knowing all of this, the people have a harder role to play than ever before.

With more illegitimate news than reliable news, you need to question a few things. 

The first is to question what you believe, why you believe it, and to be willing to listen to those who don’t agree with you in a respectful manner.

The second is to question those news sources you like the most, and ask if you like them simply because they see the world as you do.

Third, you have to question if you believe you are 100 percent right 100 percent of the time about everything. If not, then realize that possibly someone else might be right about something some of the time.

Just because the news is no longer reliable doesn’t mean we have to follow them to an inevitable conclusion of one-sided politics and unilateral thinking.

Don’t let the media do the thinking for you. Do the work of getting multiple viewpoints on your own, because they won’t do it for you, and be willing to accept that the news you are receiving is no longer shooting from an objective viewpoint, not the Associated Press, not any network news source or almost anyone else.

Don't trust anything without challenging it.

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