Gag Us, One and All

I hate the news. 

Not just this kinda news, in particular, about Mark Foley, our local congressman.  All news.

This is a problem, as I have a degree in journalism, and write and deliver the news every day.  But I hate it, hate it, hate it. 

If I never see another USA Today or Washington Post; never watch another network newscast; never again see CNN or FOX News-babes again; never happen across another hyperventilating drudgereport headline; or, for that matter, read headlines on Drudge about how the Post is writing about FOX's coverage of Katie Couric's debut at CBS -- well, I'll be mighty fine with that. 

Spiritually nourished, even.

I'm quite serious.  Let me ask this question:  When is the last time you saw something on the news that actually mattered, that minute, to how you needed to live your life?  "Oh -- THAT happened?  I'm glad I found out NOW, because now I need to..."

Bottom line:  The manner in which the news is delivered is itself a lie, because it implicitly demands that you regard it, RIGHTNOW, as immediately important, but it almost never, ever really is. 

The timpani-drums that signal every approaching newscast are saying, quite clearly, that it matters that you know, and now.  But the timpanis lie.

This isn't saying that, for example, a given story isn't indicative of something truly important.  A young woman's lost life in Aruba is important, isn't it? 

Well...Natalee Holloway's life is very important.  But it's not important at all that I, Brant Hansen, know about her.  Yet, it's stunning that I know about her, given that I never once tried to find anything out.  I can actually discuss some aspects of the JonBenet Ramsey case, though I've actively run away, at every turn, from coverage of her for ten years.

Some say they need to know the news, so they "know how to pray".  Okay.  If you pray that much, I admire you.  I wish I prayed more, so much that I covered my neighbors and friends and enemies and my family and then went on to the plane crash in the Amazon.

If it weren't my job, I'd be done with the daily news.  If it's important, if it's something I need to know, I'll find out soon enough.  And, maybe, when I find out, I'll actually have some context in which to place the headline.  Or, maybe I'd completely miss a major news story that, it turns out, didn't.  matter.  at.  all.  (John Michael Karr, anyone?  Why did I have to know about this guy?)

John Sommerville teaches at the University of Florida, and wrote a sweet little book How the News Makes Us Dumb.  The title itself is insulting (am I getting dumber?) and right on (yes, yes, I am, to the extent that my time is spent reading and consuming this unimportant crap.)  Part of his treatise is that we have lost, as a culture, the ability to discern what is important, and what is not, and our news-culture bears much the blame for this. 

I have a working definition of wisdom:  I am wise to the extent that I know the relative value of things.  What is more important: this...or this?  Summerville says news culture is foolish culture, because it breaks down our abillty to discern what really matters.  Your neighbor's marriage is breaking up, but wait -- trumpets are blaring about Tony Blair.

Think about it:  Regardless whether anything newsworthy happens in a given day, CBS will be signing on at 6, full of self-importance, pounding home that something BIG, did, indeed, happen today. 

And CNN, FOX, MSNBC -- even worse.  All day long, crawling text that just! couldn't! wait!  The crawl right now:  "British paper posts new pre-Sept 11 video...Google buys garage where it was born..."  Thanks. Now I know how to proceed with life.

Meantime, I have no idea what's going on with humans in my midst.  War is truly vitally important, yes.  AIDS in Africa -- vitally important, yes.  That's why some reflective thinking is in order, but who's got time?  Or the silence?

So what if I didn't read the Palm Beach Post?  What if I didn't watch any news?  What if I spent all that time actually relating to people, reading great literary works, writing...praying? 

Well, Brant, then you'd miss the big stuff.  How would you know the twin towers were attacked?

Someone would tell me.  Then I'd pick up a newspaper.  Even if it were a day old, I could read it.  We put a man on the moon? -- cool.  I'll buy a paper.  Other days, I'll be a little more contemplative, almost without trying.

Or what if I didn't get to read Mark Foley's emails?  What if I didn't know the latest Al Gore hypocrisy?  What about Andrew Card's real feelings on Donald Rumsfeld?  What about the sicko school shooting in Colorado last week?  What if -- what if I didn't know about it, and spent time and effort on things, and relationships, I can actually do something about?

Man, I'd be out of it.  "Uninformed"

I'll take it.

Comments

[euphrony]

Now, don't just toss the Post or USA Today yet. First, pull out the comics, Sudoku, and the crossword and then bundle for recycling.

I am a confessed news junkie, but I have learned what you talk about and what a lot do not - discernment. My discernment has lead me to not look at anything war-related for a long time. No news, just rehash; so, like you say, if something earthshattering happens it will be in skywritting before I have time to miss it. I will follow other stories, tech news that tells me where some things might be headed. Even as a news junkie, though, I spend maybe 20-30 minutes a day actively reading or listening to the news. None on the weekend (family time is too important). And I'm still more conversave on many news topics than most people I know. I guess that's kind of sad that the filters are so overloaded they cannot grasp the log in the deluge.

[Douglas_Coombs]

So, does this mean you do NOT know that your Cards are in the playoffs? Tell me, Johnny, is it 1982?

Dude, some things matter; and baseball is definitely one of them. How many water cooler conversations can you participate in if you don't know sports? Knowing sports enables you to schmooze. Schmoozing enables you to advance your carreer. Advancing your career enables you to better provide for your family (and support more kids in third world countries).

Reading the sports news is one of the most important parts of your day. Don't forget it.

Seriously, knowing something about the middle east has allowed me to have some interesting conversations with middle eastern Muslims. I've found that particularly valuable.

Doug

PS: I should probably note that I haven't watched a single football, basketball or baseball game all year except the super bowl.

But I do read the sports news occasionally. It's more efficient than actually wasting my time watching a game on TV.

[Brant]

Of course, I'm not here arguing against knowledge. Read the below-linked speech from Bernard Lewis. How many news stories would you read before gaining that perspective? And any of his books would serve you far better still.

And oh, heck yeah, I'm all about the Cards, man.

[RevJeff]

Brant...
I would have read this and responded sooner but I was too busy living.

I am so with you on the hype and urgency thing though. Great post/(rant?)I am going to 'steal it' and link all my xangites to it...

[Fayola Shakes]

A month and a half ago, I would have disagreed with you. In fact, I think someone gave me this book at one point but I didn't have time to read it. I was probably too busy trying to make my way through the paper, from the A section to the classifieds.

However, since I am no longer enslaved, er, employed by a certain daily newspaper, I've found a weird sense of freedom in being able to find out what's news at my own pace.

I don't read the paper every day (the shock!), haven't made it through a full half-hour of network news (the awe!) but I'm informed enough to know there's no hurricane on the way and no increase in car theft in my neighborhood.

And I don't need a Help Team to tell me that gas prices are up or down -- a glance at the gas station sign will suffice -- or a special report to remind me that Gen Yers are waiting longer to get married.

Now, if I could just get rid of the CrackBerry, I'd say my recovery would be complete :)

[Brant]

Thanks, Jeff and Fayola. My guess is you are in the minority with me.

I think most will think I'm advocating for ignorance, when I think news is actually a tool advancing it.

Fay, with your madd skillz: You and I could take one for the team. Let's write a monthly digest, one that would relieve everyone of the need to keep up day-to-day. "Truly Important Stuff You Missed that You Can Actually Do Something About".

It might be a half-sheet, including classifieds.

[Douglas_Coombs]

"How many news stories would you read before gaining that perspective? And any of his books would serve you far better still."

That does raise an interesting point. One would probably gain far more knowledge and perspective about say the Iraq war from a book than from the AP's daily dribble. "14 people killed in Baghdad by suicide bombers" could be the most commonly recycled headline of 2006.

Doug

[Carolyn Hansen]

I want to unsubscribe to the Post for these reasons you list, and also because they print such smutty stuff... our kids run out and pick up the paper to snatch the comics, and get to rifle through all the celebrity gossip and half-neked fashion models to get to Snoopy. Ick. But we like our Sunday paper, and it's actually cheaper to get a full year's subscription than to buy 52 Sunday papers. I'm all about value.

[Brant]

That's just my point, Doug. And it's not that "14 killed" is without ultimate importance.

The ubiquity of this is the striking thing. Today, at the gym, I had to watch live, helicoptered coverage of the Amish school shooting. I'm on the elliptical machine. What am I supposed to do about it, right now?

And then there's the constant flow of worthless information I wind up absorbing. Jen and Vince are dating, but it's questionable whether Vince has proposed. I don't hate these people, but I don't know them, either, and I don't want to know about them. It's difficult to avoid being an informed fool.

Brant

[shaun groves]

Brant, my friends laugh at me for being so uninformed and detached from mass media, news in particular. Thanks for making me feel a little less bizarre for it.

No cable for the last decade. A few hours of network news on hotel sets since. Fewer than a dozen papers read in the last six years.

Didn't do it because of some spiritual agenda actually. Wasn't trying to become Amish. Started out I couldn't afford cable. Then kids came along and I gave up newspapers and all but one magazine (WIRED) to talk to my wife, play with my kids, get to know the neighbors, and read stuff I really felt I NEEDED to know. It was economics and time management.

So this far into the fast from news and other forms of media, and I feel pretty OK. I'm functional, most days, pretty much. I mean I didn't know about this twin towers thing you mentioned or this war you speak of but doesn't sound like a big deal. I'll just Google them and catch up. ; )

SG

[Lisa]

FWIW, I don't think you're advocating ignorance, I totally agree. "The news" almost always IS ignorance. When you stand outside it, you realize that none of it actually matters. We don't take any papers. And we don't watch any TV news. (I do subscribe to Newsweek, though, but I read it selectively. Pretty much anything about gas, war, and politics is out, which leaves the cartoons, Fareed Zakaria, and George Will.) Instead, we visit the library. We shoot the breeze with our friends. We listen to our pastor. We read blogs and books and magazines, and hopefully we think about ideas more than events. And I'm pretty sure that nobody who knows me would say I am ignorant or uninformed, although I guess there's always the possibility they're saying it when I'm not around.....

[Fayola Shakes]

Classifieds? Who'd pay for ad space in a publication no one would read? Try quarter sheet.

I'll stick w/ GetReligion, thank you very much. I wish Tmatt and the crew would start covering music and ent. To quote the folks at Paste, there *are* signs of life in popular culture...it's not all Jen and Vince and People, that bastion of quality journalism.

[Alice the Brit]

count me in as the uniformed, I don't do the news at all, TV, paper or internet.... in fact the only news I do hear is from you and or Donna on WayFM in the 2 brief 2hr windows I listen to it!

I am too busy oo-ing and ah-ing over the http://cuteoverload.com stuff!!

oh and making cool images of cool shoes ;)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mumto4ms/259040785
that 2 cool men I know wear

Alice,
the *NON* demanding Brit - honestly!

[Susanne]

I'm with you, Brant!

I'm a recovering news junkie! I started reading internet news after 9/11, and it's a tough habit to break. I've found that I sometimes read/watch the news because I'm avoiding contact with real people. I've been very convicted about that.

I think it's too bad that the major news stations fill us in on all the details of celebrity divorces. It makes me sad to hear about any marriage ending, but why is Brad Pitt's divorce more important than Joe Schmoe's next door? Maybe the world would be better if we stopped caring about celebrities that we don't know and started caring for the people around us!

[Shawna]

News=gossip

[Melquiades]

Couldn't agree more with regards to celebrity "journalism" and the latest Jon Benet/Natalie Holloway saga. The 24/7 news cycle has created a cyclone of mindlessness that sucks up everything in its path.

On the other hand, I think it is every citizen's responsibility to be up-to-date on current local, national and world events, especially if he/she plans to vote. We can't choose the right leaders (and "right," of course, varies depending on who you are and what you believe) if we are uninformed.

[thecachinnator]

I'm with you freaks. I began tapering off daily digesting of news as I began to find that the answers for the problems of life do not lie in the hands of politicians or celebrities. I know that's not exactly a major revelation, but it is contrary to what the news would tell you. To hear them tell it, politicians and pretty people can fix all that ails you! My experience says otherwise. So I don't take in as much news because I am very familiar with the world's problems but don't see the answers in the solutions the news proposes.

[Seth Ward]

I used to watch the news every afternoon and night. Pretty much a news junkie. I cut it off a year ago and started reading again. I have been a happier and less fearful man for it.

[Lisa]

I agree about informing yourself so you can vote. Unfortunately, I don't see much if any of the information I need for this on the news. Our local news coverage only includes something called "World Wrap," which gives national and world "news" in about 30 seconds. (But there's three whole minutes of sports coverage.) And the network news is mostly full of the kind of spin, scandal, and gossip being decried here. For real information about political candidates, their records, stated opinions, past actions (with implications), and pretty much anything else, much more in-depth research is required.

[Egana]

no cable...

no newspaper...

no local TV...

I find out about things from my friends and neighbors...

and if I don't find out, yet, I manage to survive...

the news is too overwhelming, too in your face, and too emotionally draining for me to ingest...

And to be honest, I wish my friends and family wouldn't tell me about some of the things they learned on the news that I DONT WANT TO KNOW.

I am advocating ignorance - selective ignorance becasue ther are just some things I have no business knowing, and some things that will only haunt me, and some things that are pure lies to begin with...

[mark]

I was in the news business for a living for 10 years. I find it liberating to be able to turn the news off and not having to "know" everything.

I feel very peaceful.

[John Santic]

Thanks for the sharp reflection on news. Ever since reading Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Postman, I've felt much the same. It's truly amazing how we can get wrapped up in the unimportant far away, when in our neighbourhoods, people are dying to live.