June 20, 2020
I have had to turn the news off. Not that I wanted to but I found myself becoming quite upset by what I watched. It didn’t matter what television station I watched. I just found that everything seemed to be bad news and repetitive. News is presented in such a way that our fears and worries are stoked. I now get my news by reading online from different news sources and I can control it. When watching television news, we are a captive audience. We can change the channel but wherever we go, we get more of the same. Bad things are happening to people all over the world which mostly don’t affect us. Yet we watch. The commentators appear friendly and concerned but are they really or are they just news readers?
I wonder what happened to our ability to think clearly and make decisions based on accurate information. It seems to be that rather than unbiased journalism, news shows are now more entertainment than informative. They seem to have the power to set the context and with their choice of coverage, define a viewpoint and claim that it represents the majority of people. But do they really? If we see things differently, are we in the minority?
Does watching the newscasts no matter what station cause us to give up our ability to think for ourselves? Have we allowed others to make our choices for us by inflaming our fears? Have we allowed the news agencies to control the information we get and to guide us into accepting their messages?
Have we allowed ourselves to dumb down?
What do you think? Email me your comments.
