Streaming Unconsciousness

Got myself into a small (very small) difficulty in Twitter awhile ago. It was because people take their tweets (and themselves) too seriously. Giving the benefit of the doubt, the person who hasn't a sense of humor about what I said is a frequent target of trolls so it may be that he thought I was arguing with him.

The gist of his tweet was that today's journalists have descended to spoon feeding us their opinions rather than the news. To which I responded: "But they're just trying to make sure we draw the RIGHT conclusion. :D" Right as in side not as in correct. He didn't say much but someone else chose to "school" me in how my goal should be to have the journalists presenting me with the "correct conclusions". In the interest of not wanting to make a flame war happen, I didn't respond in kind. I didn't say it, but I did wonder why someone else needs to tell me what "conclusion" I should draw? Isn't that pretty much what the media is doing now?

We don't have journalism any more, we have Punditry. That didn't happen because the broadcasting companies decided it was cheaper to have pundits on air rather than journalists, it happened because we CHOSE it. OMG, there I go again trying to make US accept responsibility for our share of fault for the very issues we constantly complain about.

The programs that these pundits host appear on cable news stations because we watch them. It's our viewership that drives the ratings and therefore the amount of money the station can charge it's advertisers. Thanks to the internet, John Q. Public has a voice. We praise and adore those pundits we agree with and are vocal in our support on whatever social media we choose to use. This praise and adoration is picked up by like minded individuals and they too add to the ratings by changing their channel to the one that produces the only "news" they agree with. And that's where my problem starts, we don't want to hear anything but validation of our own opinions. Which is what cable news networks are aware of. Hello Fox News, and to a slightly lesser extent, CNN and MSNBC.

All of those channels filter out what they know their viewers don't wish to hear. We are no longer allowed access to both sides of an issue which would provide us with the ability to make informed decisions and draw better conclusions. We, by our support of certain pundits over others, created this mess. It's not going to change until we wake up from our pundit induced comas and start opening our eyes and our minds to a wider diversity of thought.