it's not just about listening to ideas. if it were that easy, we'd already be more socially cohesive. it's about subtler things like real empathy, where you can actually see and follow the chain of reason someone takes to get to a position, however outlandish you think that is at the outset. it's about holding contradictory ideas in your head at the same time, constantly, about everything, rather than retreating into your warm and cozy ideological corner at every dissonance.
but it's also about not simply giving in to the outlandish because you want to create a safe space. that means calling someone out for what is usually some form of aggression without alienating or offending, putting real social capital on the line, and requiring self-restraint, courage, a bit of charisma, and more.
and then you have media organizations like npr itself, nytimes, and twitter actively trying to play both sides, instigating while also trying to claim the moral high ground, feeding divisiveness.
it's hard, and takes active, willful effort from (nearly) everyone.
If you really want to find a compelling starting point for the state of our current public political discourse, you may find it in the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. Rush Limbaugh's first radio broadcast airs in 1988 which introduced "anger-tainment" as a very profitable political news model. As time passes, this new business model affected every news organization in one way or another, to various degrees, willingly or not.
i'm not sure the (repeal of the) fairness doctrine is a prime culprit, but i'm open to hearing a fuller perspective.
more to the point, i just heard a real example of the kind of empathy and compassion we need by nba hall-of-famer isaiah thomas on tnt's "the arena" airing right now, of all places.
it was in relation to LA county sheriff alex villanueva calling out lebron james to put up money for the recent shooting of two sheriff deputies in compton. this is a powder-keg issue here in LA right now. the knee-jerk reaction would have been to put down the sheriff for an unreasonable emotional outburst, but isaiah basically extended his hand and narrated how he understood where the sheriff was coming from, even if the demand was not exactly well thought out.
that's really hard to do in the moment, and my respect for isaiah just rose significantly because of it.
I'm not sure how old you are, but think about what you saw on that political / news show then imagine how Walter Cronkite would have reported those events. I haven't seen the show you're talking about, but I would imagine the difference would be stark.
Point being, what you saw sells ads better than if Walker Cronkite reported it because it's emotionally charged. All this really kicked into gear with Rush Limbaugh because he was allowed to sit there and just rant for 3 hours and get people riled up. When you consume any news, look for clues that they are trying to get you riled up. Look for emotional words like "obliterated," "destroyed," etc. particularly in the headline (which reporters don't control). News is a business and are bound by the same profit/loss laws as any other business.
"the arena" is a sports talk show that happened to be on in the background after watching the lakers game (in which lebron and his crew won). it's relatively unique in that it's anchored by a black woman (cari champion), but it's squarely a sports opinion show, and incidentally political, for instance, due to the intertwining issue of black folks being disproportionately targeted by police and the legal system.
it's not meant to be fact-rich/low-opinion news, and they make that obvious by not mimicking a news format, unlike many other "news"-like shows, which is entirely acceptable. there is room for a few opinion shows in the mix. but it's the opinion shows disguised as news shows that are insidiously problematic, and that's increasingly all of them.
we're entirely in agreement that the profit motive drives news and news-like organizations in a race to the bottom toward attention-grabbing infotainment rather than staid factual news.
it's almost as if we need to break off high-value, low-engagement news organizations into fully independent non-profits that are funded by a pool of income from the infotainment industry for the right to continue delivering low-value, high-engagement infotainment, rather than intermixing the two.
It just occurred to me that our political news discourse has gotten so bad, it was easy to assume "the arena" could be the name of a news / opinion show, but my mistake.
>it's almost as if we need to break off high-value, low-engagement news organizations into fully independent non-profits that are funded by a pool of income from the infotainment industry for the right to continue delivering low-value, high-engagement infotainment, rather than intermixing the two.
We absolutely do, and I think there is a demand for it, just not sure how it would ever get funded because the investors would always want the higher return the anger-tainment style would bring. I try to focus on individual / independent journalism when available. I'm just starting to (audio)read Woodward's new book, and it seems pretty fair so far. I thought his last book seemed fair also. The difference of the new book is quite stark compared to the media's take on it recently.
I remember early in his presidency, watching a Trump speech. A short while later I saw news coverage on that same speech and it was like they weren't even talking about the same event.
This makes so much sense, I mean Chris Cuomo, Maddow, Brian Williams, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, doesn't matter - they all use very emotional language to describe things.
I long for the good ole Walter Cronkite news casts. (I didn't mention fox commentators because that's beyond the beyond, they're way worse).
Is this because you disagree politically or because they’re “beyond the beyond, they’re way worse” or whatever thoughtless, meaningless comment Was typed?
Fox News was conceived as and currently is a propaganda network for the Republican Party. Roger Ailes, a Nixon advisor, saw how the media caused the public opinion to really sour during the Watergate scandal and impeachment and he had the foresight to counteract it. He was the first CEO for Fox News, which was funded by Rupert Murdoch, founder of SkyNews in Australia, another network with not the best reputation.
but it's also about not simply giving in to the outlandish because you want to create a safe space. that means calling someone out for what is usually some form of aggression without alienating or offending, putting real social capital on the line, and requiring self-restraint, courage, a bit of charisma, and more.
and then you have media organizations like npr itself, nytimes, and twitter actively trying to play both sides, instigating while also trying to claim the moral high ground, feeding divisiveness.
it's hard, and takes active, willful effort from (nearly) everyone.