I have been emailing with a friend about the media lately and it
brings up a number of issues about the nature of today media, especially in the
area of news.
Local news we agree can be helpful. My complaint is they spend too
much time retelling national news.
A larger issue is just what is a news program. I likely get most of
my media news from watching GMA in the morning, which is more fluff and
entertainment than news, but you get the weather and some breaking stories and
occasionally a nice piece of good news. We also watch the evening news, again
on ABC with Diane Sawyer, who seems quite earnest and pretty and gives some
highlights that we have generally already learned during the day. You can take
any network of your choice and have pretty much the same stuff. All of them
generally take more time setting up a rather short news bit than telling the
news story itself. And they all owned by companies that have vested interests
in the news.
Also, since Roone Arledge took over ABC news all networks are about
the business of news; they are meant to make money, not just report the news.
As a result we get a lot of bad news because that sells better than good news.
As a result I do most of my newsgathering on the Internet, trying to find more
reliable sources and weeding out the bull. It’s not easy but worthwhile.
My friend complained that the media often tells us what we should
think about issues and events rather than just give us the news and letting us
filter that information through our own belief and reasoning systems. Of
course, that is the point of many commentary programs that abound on TV such
as: CBS’’s Sunday Morning; ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopolus, NBC’s
Meet the Press and the like. On those programs who have folk from various
political points of view debating others on the merits of their views versus
the wrongness of other ideas. What my friend complains about as these
discussions are often rude, abrasive, and impolite and are based more on rhetorical
methods than reasoning. I agree.
I taught debate when I was a high school teacher and had some
problems with the game. It was a win lose competition, as you would expect.
Students would collect data on the 3” x 5” cards and bombard each other with information.
Call me naïve but I have believed and still do that the point of debate is to
search for truth. Debate, discussion, whatever you call it, is a place for us
to share our ideas and thoughts with others so we can all have a clearer
understanding what is truth. That does not mean we will all agree, but it
should be helpful to all involved in helping develop our own ideology and
beliefs and values. That is why I began this blog; to have discussion and
debate on religion and politics but being civil about it in the process.
However, it seems to be a lost art.
I have absolutely no patience with shows and networks that are just
propaganda machines basically appealing to people emotions and have not qualms
about lying or misconstruing information as long as it helps promote their own
ideas. The radical right has become experts at this though it is not limited to
their party or parties (I have said it seems there are 5 Republican parties at
the moment.) I wish that the American public would just not listen these hate
mongers that do not look for solutions but just stir up the pot in shock radio
or TV. But bad news sells.
In my younger years education was about developing critical powers
of thinking. That didn’t mean being critical, but being able to evaluate ideas,
questioning, discussing, and searching for truths. And, for a while we were
pretty good at it that we became more a nation of complaining about what was
wrong rather than becoming problems solvers. As a pastor I have heard people
constantly complaining about this or that and I generally respond by asking
them what ideas do they have about solving that problem. Generally silence
follows at that point.
A final point I want to make on this subject. I believe a major
reason why have all this senseless emotional rhetorical mud slinging going on
today is because that is what is modeled for us by politicians and other
leaders, including the church. One of the most important studies that has
helped me in my career and in life, was not a course I took in primary,
secondary, college or seminary but in a continuing education piece I took on listening and hearing skills. In Gestalt
therapy there is a piece I often use to show folk that you cannot listen and
talk and the same time. What we usually do in debate it hear a few works and
then immediately begin rebuttals in our heads, thus missing the totality of
what is being said to us. If we cannot hear properly we cannot speak clearly
and appropriately.
What we need badly in this country is the ability to listen
creatively and well. We need to take the time to let whoever we are talking to complete
their thought and then we can respond. That is exactly what does not happen in
shows such as my friends mentioned. Instead they rudely interrupt to get the
two cents in no matter what the other person has said. It is bad manners, and
not helpful to listeners who may be tried to make sense of the issues that face
us today.
I was served a church that had a great deal of conflict. There was
about half the church that lacking good verbal skills in being able to get
their ideas across. They other half had excellent speaking skills but were
basically oblivious to the ideas of others. The result was a split church. To
deal with this problem we involved as many members of the congregation as
possible in listening skills meetings led by myself and a leader from the
denomination. I won’t say we solved every problem that church faced and had
faced for years. But we did help. A lot of people found their voice and were
listened to and taken seriously. A more united community came about.
I wish someone would take the members of our congress and the
members of the media and provide such practical learning on listening.
As Jesus said, “Let those who have ears, hear.”
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