Funny thing about journalism…
Journalism is a unique industry. It’s nature has created problems and inconsistencies that don’t exist anywhere else.
Reporters are not trained to add value to people’s lives. We are trained to obtain and transmit information. I say we only because I’ve studied journalism for the past 3.5 years. I am not and will never be a professional journalist.
We’re taught that, especially while working in the endless content hole that is the internet, we need to be producing content in an uprecedented volume. Due to the way ad revenue works we are told to prioritize quantity over quality.
There is an assumption that providing information to people adds value to their lives. As countless studies have shown, information overload gives us anxiety and makes us twitchy and distracted. The South Park episode “Put It Down,” in which Tweek is wracked with anxiety over constant shocking news about the president, illustrates this fantastically.
We are constantly exposed to news content, and most people readily gobble it up without considering whether or not it will benefit them. People want to be informed for a number of reasons. There are social pressures to be in touch with current events, past experiences where information helped us succeed at something, and good old FOMO, because who wants to be that one person at a party who missed the latest big story?
Information does not necessarily translate to knowledge, though. Our education system prioritizes memorization and recitation of facts over connections between pieces of knowledge that truly lead to a more enriched life. When people trained with this “learning” method interact with the modern media environment, they find themselves absorbing massive amounts of information just to stay, “up to date.”
I used to be a complete news addict. I would spend at least an hour and a hlaf every day reading news, think pieces, and analysis from all over the politcal spectrum just so I could be up to date. I realized after a while that all that time spent keeping up was preventing me from getting ahead in life.
Starting last fall I drastically reduced my news consumption and immediately noticed an increase in my happiness. I spend less than 20–30 minutes a day reading news now, and some days I don’t read it at all.
I’m still informed, though. My journalist friends are constantly updating me about the latest controversies. I talk to people and eavesdrop in coffee shops to hear what controversies are currently trending.
Instead of trying to focus on national news coverage, I’ve been prioritizing relationships that are real in the sense that I’ve physically met the other person and know them as more than a username. I’ve made a point to spend time with people who help me grow intellectually. I’ve stayed more in touch with local activist groups working on issues like DACA, climate change and indigenous rights.
Like the ladies in this amazing painting by Eugen von Blaas, I am staying up to date on the issues that directly effect my life by talking to real people IRL. Avoiding national news coverage doesn’t mean I avoid national issues. As I mentioned before, I’m still involved with national social justice issues without being constantly plugged into the news feed.
The point I’m trying to move toward is that information can easily become a barrier between yourself and the relationships that truly matter. Reading news content can feel like you are involving yourself in a particular issue, but in reality you are assuming the passive position of a consumer, constantly receiving information but rarely contributing your own.
The structure of conversations in the current media environment is entirely unproductive as well. Comment sections are notorious cesspool of misunderstanding and offensive provocations. Communication through digital mediums strips us of empathy, compassion, and the ability (or desire) to understand each other. Once we grow accustomed to this sort of public discourse, it changes our interpersonal discourse as well.
Journalists, by constantly producing news content and analysis, Journalists is also an ever-widening category of individuals. Bloggers are “citizen journalsists” and are an integral part of the modern information economy. Our options for media consumptions are constantly growing. As we are given more and more different forms of a commodity that is as universally valued as information, they will inevitably consume more and more of it.
There is no metric for the amount of value that reading a blog post or news article will add to your life. The only metric that matters to the modern media business is engagement, the amount of attention paid to a particular piece of content.
One of the biggest issues that arises when news organizations are constantly pushing out such a massive volume of content — fake news. Or, more accurately, stories that are published and then proven later on to be false. When this happens, there are two main problems:
- thousands of people probably saw the false story and believed it was true
- there is no mechanism to reliably inform every single reader of the error
Content providers want to maximize readership, so lots of people will have read any fake story by the time it’s debunked. They will then move forward in life acting on that innaccurate information, possibly arguing with coworkers and relatives about Russia, immigration, climate change, or any other hot-button issue. Unless they happen to go back that same news site to see a correction, they’ll never know they read false information. Our public discourse is being influenced by shameless large-scale dissemination of factually dubious information for maximum profit.
Everyone knows that there is a lot of nonfactual information online, yet we’re all simply plowing forward into this maelstrom of misinformation. Not all news is fake news, but it’s getting harder and harder to know what we should trust. Even respected outlets like CNN toe the line of propaganda and ideological warfare, while garbage piles like Alex Jones are knowingly promote conspiracies for personal gain.
Instead of becoming more conscious and critical consumers of information, though, everyone just wants to yell at Mark Zuckerberg to solve the problem. They’re mad at one of the world’s best techno-capitalists for working to maximize financial return on his platform. The sad reality is, however, that the people in charge of the most influential platforms care more about being profitable than about providing social value. Such is life in our capitalist society.
This problem is not going away. New media platforms will emerge that rival Facebook in scale and influence. The volume of content will continue to grow because the endless digital void needs to be filled. We are going to remain passively glued to our news feeds because we don’t want to miss out.
There are two potential solutions: either we fix our platforms and the way information is disseminated, or we develop a more active relationship with our news rather than remaining passive consumers.
What changes do you forsee in our media economy? let us know in the comments and clap a few times if you enjoyed this post.
As always, thanks for reading. If you’d like to keep up with me please follow me on Twitter @JeremyCummings3 or on Instagram @so.tall.im.in.space. And if you’d like to help me buy the coffee that fuels these ideas, please feel free to pledge to my Patreon page.
Have an awesome day.
