Two Bads Don’t Make a Good

In reading the editorial pages of the newspapers, one is struck by the impression that the editors believe that by presenting one gross, distorted perspective countered by an opposing gross, distorted perspective -- that somehow, they have presented the truth of the situation, rather than just two grossly distorted perspectives that are not helpful in getting closer to the truth. And that is why credibility and readership is collapsing at unprecedented rates now that there are alternative sources for information -- rather than just “news,” which they and their confederates control.

Real useful information on the other hand, will cause one to stop looking for more information -- until the next “real” need arises -- rather than just the fabrications by editors thinking to create more news, and the demand for “more” news. Obviously, this is a need that no longer exists -- and people need to reserve their attention for actual problems and solutions, and not just those manufactured by the news peddlers to counter the confusion that they themselves are creating.

Society doesn’t need to create any more jobs like that -- of people creating problems just so they can provide the “solution.” There are far more meaningful ways to use one’s life -- than in gossip, propaganda and deliberate distortions. If one can, better just to be completely unaware of all those things. The decline of mass media is the verdict of a clearer thinking audience that they need less of this “entertainment” while focusing their attention on real problems confronting their daily lives, and in solving those problems, rather than just the fabricated, their lives will improve meaningfully and substantially.

That is the problem of mass media in a personalized media world. Publishers can no longer control or insist, that the reader first read the information they want them to see, before they can have the information they want.

Election seasons are particularly perilous times for newspapers -- because of the heightened partisanship, manipulations and deceptions -- that allowed to go unchecked, and even encouraged and inflamed, totally destroys whatever vestiges of credibility these publications have. Of course they can point out that their sources lied -- as though merely reporting them, absolves them of any culpability and malice.

A lot has changed since most of the leaders of mass media received their training and education; many are even past the mandatory retirement age for most other fields -- to remain at the top of their game. So their world of information was shaped fifty years ago -- and they have apparently learned little new since, and think that in maintaining these “old values,” they can cause them to return -- while the rest of society has passed them by, amazed that they should demand that the prerequisite for learning anything new, is to learn everything that is old -- for which they have the monopoly and are the gatekeepers collecting the tolls.

The problem of the old mass media is that they are overrun by the abundance of information -- and not the lack of it.