The media lies
I don't watch the news
It is the media’s fault
You won’t see this on TV or in the media
People should just stop listening to the media
All the media does is divide us
The media is fake news
The media only reports bad news
The media did this
The media did that
The media
The media
The media
News flash, it is not the media that is the problem. It is you who is the problem.
For a long time, there has been an attack on the media. We have stopped reading the newspaper. We have stopped watching the nightly news. We have started to expect the media to give us what we want for free. We get mad at paywalls and ads. We think if the media makes a mistake they did it on purpose to serve an agenda. We think the media never made a mistake 50 years ago but now all they do is lie.
We tend to turn on social media and see viral videos cut up to serve a purpose other than just informing and assume that is news.
We hear what the "celebrity news hosts" and people with large followers say and assume that is the news.
We ignore the news so we do not have to deal with what is actually happening and then when something huge breaks, we go I can't believe I did not know this, why wasn't the media telling us about this. They were, you just shut off the news because you hate to feel sad or can't hear something scary without your first impulse being that the media is trying to scare you.
We hear a rumor or see part of the story and without doing any research assume that is the whole story.
We want the media to have 100% of the story within five minutes of the story breaking and if they don't we get upset. Or we assume if one reporter has one part of a story and another reporter has a different part of that story, that one of them is lying.
News is not stagnant but we want it to be.
Almost every story is gray but we want it to be black or white.
Just so we are clear, the media makes mistakes, but guess what, they get fact-checked and called out. They make corrections. They update their stories when they discover new information. You have just stopped following the news story because it is only interesting to you in that moment it first breaks.
For example; last weekend several Minnesota outlets reported that 80% of the fires or looting were started by people outside of town/the state. They reported this because that is what the government reported. It took less than a day for the same outlets to follow the story, find out that was not true, and call out the officials who made the comments. The media reported what it knew and what their sources said, then they went and checked the sources.
However, because our attention spans are so short we just move on and blame the media.
Our current President calls it Fake News, but notice how he only calls it Fake News when it does not favor him or calls him out. Real news should not care about feelings; it should focus on the story and facts.
All sides seem to have come together on one thing; the media is to blame.
Trump wants his followers to stop watching the news or reading it because the news is tough on him and calls him out for his lies. If he can get his followers to ignore the news, he wins. His followers have bought into it because they believe the lie that the media is against them. The media is not against Trump, it is against the lies he tells and the danger he spreads.
The rest of the right calls it the liberal news media, but that is not true. There are several middle of the road outlets and outlets that are based on facts and numbers. However, because the right tends to deal with more emotional pleas than facts and are bolder when they do, they get called out for it.
People in the middle tend to just turn off the news or ignore it because it makes them sad or causes them to think critically about real situations and stories. The people that say, “I don’t watch the news cause all they do is report the bad stuff.” First, that is not true; there are plenty of reporting on positive stories. Second, the bad stuff is important. Reporting on killings, the pandemic, threats, and polices are more important than reporting on the cute kid with the charity lemonade stand or the saving of a cat from a tree. Especially in times like this. The job of the news is to report was is happening, good and bad.
In addition, we as the general public love the dramatic juicy stories on in or TV shows, that plays a role. We would not watch the news even if it was all stories about butterflies and roses.
The left tends to want to silence different “less progressive” thinking, especially in opinion pieces. There is a battle between core liberal values, open dialogue for most thoughts and ideas, and a new trend in liberalism that focuses on how we don’t want to see differing viewpoints that might be offensive.
Too often the far-left gets mad about certain opinions being run and focuses their anger on that instead of focusing on why the opinion is factually wrong or dangerous. It gives the Fake News people exactly what they want. They use it as an example to push their agenda that the media is bias as they call out their guy (rightfully so) but the left screams when a different viewpoint is allowed to be published or talked about in a public setting.
The news is not you following people on social media who only confirm your beliefs and do not have an affiliation with a real news organization. You need to question what you see on social media, especially when it does not come from a news outlet. Even though someone has a blue checkmark, it does not mean you should take their word as gospel.
Social commentators with TV shows, podcasts, or webcasts pushing agendas are not the same as newspapers and your local news stations. You need to understand that distinction. They often do not report the news and rely on very few and extremely bias sources.
Watching round table discussions on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC while sometimes helpful and informative do not count as watching the news. I am of the belief that these shows do more harm than good because we as people take their opinion as fact if we like it and false or fake if we do not.
You should be following more than just your favorite network news station or even that one reporter you like. You should follow your local newspapers and your local TV stations. You should be willing to pay for the news, most local papers charge super-low monthly rates to read their stories online.
Doing so will also help stop the false narrative about “the media won’t report this”. One, the national media cannot report on everything happening around the world, so if that is where you get 99% of your news, change that. Two, if you are not watching your local news or following them on social media you won’t see those things that are happening in your community. Those stories are out there and being covered. Three, you and millions of people have decided you do not want to pay for the news. You don’t get the paper or subscribe online. Thus, media outlets have cut staff, making it harder to cover multiple stories. This especially occurs in rural and out of the metro areas. There was a time where almost all communities had their own paper and covered stories for the local area. Sometimes bigger outlets in populous areas picked them up but this occurs less and less because many of the papers don’t exist and bigger news outlets are seeing their papers cut down. You assume that if you do not see it on your personal feeds, it was not covered. Don't feed that lie.
It is you that you should be mad at; you just cannot admit it or refuse to see it.
You have chosen you do not want to follow a story longer than two minutes.
You choose to not watch the news or read the newspaper.
You want the media to be your scapegoat for not following along.
You want the media to report your beliefs but no one else's.
You expect the media to think critically for you.
You expect the media to cater to you.
We created this problem.
We can also fix it.
Stop blaming the media.
Ignoring is the worst thing you can do. PS: If you live in an area that had any protests, riots, police/national guard called up or looting and watched the local coverage you will see how important the news is and how we need them.
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