Every news story has an angle, a spin, a political value encased in diction and syntax. Words denote substance, of course, but they also come with nuances. They cannot be sanitized, scrubbed of associations, as if they were blood stains at a crime scene. Words have color. Like a chameleon, they change shades depending upon their surroundings. They have (wink-wink) conflated meanings. Did the victim die at the hands of the police from a “scuffle” or from a “beating”? Is the person of interest an “extremist” an “agitator,” or a “devotee” of the opposition? In this picture of a man wearing camouflage and carrying an AR-15, shall we label him a “terrorist” or a “freedom fighter”? As we know, Fox News has a motto, “Fair and Balanced,” that depicts network productions that rarely are either fair or balanced. Is the panhandler whom a reporter interviewed an “idler” or “a person down on luck”? Pick a word, any word, and you make a choice that carries not only a denotation but also a connotation. To add to the confusion, words are shape-shifters, they change their personalities from one generation to the next. Take a studied look at the word ‘Nice’ in the OED and you will find contradictory meanings and treatments from one century to the next. One of my students once identified me as “a real bad dude,” and he meant that tag, I think, as a compliment. Syntax, too, adds nuances to any report; word order will add emphasis to meaning. Moreover, modifiers come prepackaged with bias, lending nouns prejudicial meanings: “shady politician,” “dizzy blonde,” “ham-fisted wide receiver,” “cheap suit,” and so on. Unless one uses numbers to communicate, objectivity is unmanageable. And, I suppose, even if we used numbers exclusively to correspond, after a while some of those digits would carry connotations. After all, car license plates and phone numbers sell at auction in China for obscene prices (a recent phone number sold for over 50,000 US dollars) simply because 5s and 8s are considered lucky. The most spiritual number is 10, don’t you think? Don’t you believe that 3 has some special alchemy? The Greeks thought so. We have already wrongly associated 666 with abundant satanic associations. 10-4 good buddy. Gaa!
News in its many formulae is not only devoid of objectivity but also increasingly devoid of stories with consequential value beyond over-the-fence gossip. Why should anyone care about the daily activities of the Kardashians? Really? Does the latest take on the Game of Thrones warrant lead story status across most websites? Why should we focus attention on the “stunning” dress some starlet wears as she arrives at the Cannes Film Festival? Sheesh! Should we all turn our attention to Kate Upton modeling a swimsuit just a few months after giving birth? And how about that fender bender that Justin Bieber suffered on his way to church? Is there no end to celebrity devotion and the attention we pay to the trivialities they encounter? How about showing us a picture of the wart on Prince Phillip’s ass? Did you know that a bride recently had a poop stain on her wedding dress? Such no-count news items, “Ellen DeGeneres Defends Meghan Markle, Prince Harry Amid Vacation Controversy” crowd out reports of substance (bombings, typhons, political exposés, and factual accounts of significant events) that shape our lives. When did news become silly chinwag for simple-minded people? Maybe a better question is: what is worthy of being included in the news? Are conspiracy theories really worth our time? If the first lady makes a face, the whole connected world gets both the picture and the explication because we care so much. Did you know that I am a genius if I can answer eight of these next ten questions? Wow. I had no idea. Wait, where was I? I must have a larger IQ than I had previously concluded. Does Kim Kardashian really have six toes? Amazing! Another screaming click-bait feature informs me that so-and-so was caught bare-naked in the self-service aisle at Walmart. That is a must-see. Shame on me. Bare-naked, I confess, always captures my interest.
Beyond the nugatory news items, if, in fact, news items they are, readers face difficulties sorting through the jumble to find what is of value. The journalism department at Stony Brook University published the following challenges to us as we strive to find objective reporting and evidence-based information.
The Digital Age poses four information literacy challenges for civil society:
1. The overwhelming amount of information that floods over us each day makes it difficult to sort out reliable from fabricated information.
2. New technologies to create and widely share information make it possible to spread misinformation that looks like it’s from an authoritative source.
3. The conflict between speed and accuracy has escalated. We all want information as quickly as possible, but accelerating the distribution of information in the Digital Era has also increased the chances that the information will be wrong.
4. The Internet and Social Media make it much easier to select only the information that supports our preexisting beliefs, reinforcing rather than challenging them. (A NEW LITERACY FOR CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE 21st CENTURY)
The expression, “you are what you eat” comes to mind. A corresponding notion: your thinking is shaped by what you read and hear. Though the analogy may be oversimplied, we have been consuming too much junk food lately, and, of course, that leads to poor health. You’ve heard about the teenager in England who ate only Pringles, French fries, and white bread? Vitamin deficiency eventually robbed him of vision, a condition he will suffer for the remainder of his life.
Must I make the connection for you? Our vision of the world is seen through the optics we choose. The clear ones have the fewest flaws.