Surfing the Current Thing Pt. 2
Morning Thoughts #239
What is ideal journalism? At its most basic level, it is the simple reporting of an event, without subjective commentary and without extrapolation into ominous possibilities. It is the straightforward presentation of facts, even in the case of a tragedy, where the tragedy itself is conveyed rather than the fearful potentialities it might suggest. This is to say, a utopia of words that likely exists nowhere - and certainly not in corporate news media today.
Just as there is literacy, there is also media literacy. For those who lack it, avoiding (well-funded) media altogether might be the wiser choice.
Media literacy means engaging not just with the surface of what is written (the obvious take-away), but with the why, the function, the tone, and the intentionality of a piece. It means identifying the thesis and testing the strength of the columns, its arguments, that claim to support the structure of its coherence. It means examining your emotional response to it. Have you become an instrument played by the headlines, your reactions dictated by their hands? Always consider: few news articles are islands unto themselves. Almost all function as supporting evidence for a greater narrative, some ideological sticking point. To merely read the news is to be a passive consumer of it and to offer yourself in service to its aims.
Consider this: only a fool would recommend the complete works of Shakespeare, untranslated, to someone who does not speak English or to an illiterate laborer. They would be more likely to bash your head in with it (which might be well deserved, given your ridiculous presumption in handing it to them in the first place) than to engage with it intellectually. The same applies to the modern media landscape. Its cumulative mass is far greater than even the collected works of Shakespeare, and for those who wield its heft without understanding the underlying function of its words, it is an even deadlier weapon.