To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. —Henry David Thoreau
As the face of information gathering changes, we wonder if there is any news source left that we can trust
Well, fuck.
That just describes my morning, which started at 4:00 AM. Rain started falling while I was walking the dog. I accidentally punted a cat in the dark when we returned. I forgot to block the hallway and the damp dog decided to get in bed with Kat. I spilled my coffee. Then, immediately after clicking the link to a story that sounded interesting, a box pops up telling me this is the last of my free articles for the month. I’ve had better mornings.
The last item, the one about using my last free click for the month is happening more often. As an increasing number of newspapers have had to turn to paywalls to pay the bills, the number of reliable news sources accessible at any given time begins to shrink. A prime example is Business of Fashion, a UK-based fashion magazine that exists primarily online. Having been free since their inception, I’ve come to rely on its up-to-date information of everything going on in the fashion industry. Their news is not only timely but largely reliable. Starting this week, however, they’ve put everything behind a rather expensive paywall. Sure, it comes out to less than the price of a cup of coffee per day if I pay for the whole year in advance, but that would be quite a dent in our cash flow. So, I’ll have to deal with the five articles a month to which I am now limited.
Am I just cheap or is there a problem here?
Social News Junkies
I’ve always had an addiction of sorts to news. At one point, back when print was the only option, I subscribed to three different daily papers, four weekly magazines, and six monthlies. Our recycling bin was always overflowing and there was never any shortage of newsprint for craft projects. Mind you, at that particular point in time, I wasn’t writing a damn thing. All I did was take pictures all day. No one was interested in my opinion and I was much more careful about when and where I expressed such.
A lot has changed over the past 30 years, though. Print subscription rates have gone up, dramatically in some cases. Every major news and information source, from the New York Times to National Public Radio to your local television station has an online presence and, in most cases, when they first came online they were free. The number of news and information sources became so numerous that they gave rise to aggregators such as Huffington Post. The upside of aggregators is that they assembled all the really important stuff from a myriad of different sources. The downside was that they did so with a very marked and obvious political bias. Next came social media, which aggregated the aggregators, and as the volume of viewers grew into the millions the number of sources with blatant political motivations grew as well.
Now, we are faced with two problems. First, the original model of relying on display ads to pay the bills hasn’t worked. Over the past three years, the number of newspapers putting the majority of their content behind a paywall has tripled. They’ve had no choice. They still need to pay the bills. At the same time, however, the reliability of all news/information sources combined has declined, dramatically.
Freedom Of Information
Once upon a time, there was a reliable source of global information that was available to everyone: the public library. Any time I came across a reference to a source to which I wasn’t already subscribed, I could make my way to the library’s periodical section and most usually find the source I needed. Libraries are still there, of course, but as demand for space and revenue has shifted, resources have been removed from periodical subscriptions in favor of Internet needs. Walk into the beautiful downtown branch of the Indianapolis Public Library and the periodicals section is not only significantly smaller, it’s also hidden, relegated to a corner of the second floor.
While the shift away from print subscriptions seems to make sense on the surface, it hasn’t resulted in more online subscriptions. While libraries have invested thousands of dollars in computers with Internet access, those services don’t necessarily include online periodical subscriptions. Why? The majority of public computer use is not for reading periodicals. Job searches and educational programming dominate, right after checking one’s Facebook status. So, if the library doesn’t subscribe to the print edition of a periodical, access is still just as limited as it would be if one had just stayed home.
At the same time, as biased and unreliable sources of information increases, many sources we’ve long considered reliable are either downsizing or going away altogether. Titles that were once mainstays, such as Newsweek and US News And World Report are barely recognizable in their online forms. Reliable, honest information is quickly going the way of the Dodo bird.
Not As Informed As We Think
An informed electorate is necessary for a democracy to work. The entire system dissolves when the people doing the voting are no longer getting reliable, trustworthy information from which they can make intelligent decisions.
Look at us. Look at this election cycle. Consider the absolute nonsense one hears being spouted at political rallies. This is not an informed electorate. In fact, I would be willing to go out on a limb and guess that, at the very least, 70 percent of those who are voting in the upcoming election are making their decision based in part on incorrect and unfounded information. Whether it has come from Fox News or CNN or MSNBC is irrelevant. None of them are reliable. None of them can be trusted. Yet, those are the sources from which an overwhelming number of Americans get their news.
We need new sources of news. We need to know that the articles we’re reading have been vetted, that sources have been confirmed, and that the people and organizations doing the reporting are being held responsible for what they report. Americans, and citizens around the world, need to once again be able to trust the news and information they receive.
At the same time, I am of the opinion that there needs to be a greater distinction between actual news, that information that directly impacts our lives, and more casual forms of information. I may go to the newspaper for the box score of last night’s Cubs/Indians game, but if I want to know the ridiculous pre-game superstitions of the starting lineup I should have to find a different source. Our propensity for finding everything in one place is severely diminishing the value of everything we consume and news is at the very top of that list.
We’re Tired Of This Shit
A new research report from the Pew Research Center states that “More than one-third of social media users are worn out by the amount of political content they encounter.” I have to wonder if any part of that fatigue comes from the fact that, not only has this election cycle gone on far too long, we know all too well that the information being distributed through social media is either horribly slanted or an outright lie. We’re exhausted from trying to parse out what is true (very little) with what isn’t (far too much).
Something in my gut tells me that if the good folks at the Pew Center were to ask, they’d find that a large number of people are equally exhausted with all the social media content they encounter, with the possible exception of kitten videos. In an effort to make themselves more attractive to the masses, news sources have too often become little more than slightly modified versions of what People magazine once was, while sources such as People have become more like The National Enquirer. When we sit down to read what we presume to be a legitimate news article, we shouldn’t have to wonder whether the content and its sources are legitimate!
I understand the need for publications to resort to paywalls. The ad model just doesn’t work for them in an online environment. However, the more distance we put between the American populace and legitimate news sources, the few that remain, the more our democracy continues to erode. Uninformed people make stupid decisions in the voting booth. As bad as this election cycle has been, it can, and will, get worse. We need news sources that are reliable, honest, and accessible. Short of that, there is no hope for democracy to return to our country.
No, You Do Not Understand
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us. —Socrates
A recent survey illustrates how wide the gap is between how whites and blacks perceive racism
What we understand about any given topic is generally a lot less than what we like to think. Even after thirty-plus years, you won’t catch me claiming to know everything about photography. Knowing the limits of what we understand on any topic is important. Being open to different perspectives and various sources of information helps us to learn and grow.
What we understand, or don’t understand, about race, though, is critical. What we think we know shapes our attitudes and perceptions not only about the topic of race, but about the people whose appearance is different than our own. The tone of our voice, the vocabulary we use, even our physical mannerisms change based on what we think we understand about people of different ethnicities and backgrounds.
There are gaps of perception between people of any two races, but the strongest and perhaps widest gap, particularly on the topic of race and equality, may lie between the two most broadly identified groups: blacks and whites. A new survey released Monday by the Pew Research Center highlights just how incredibly wide that gap is. For all the advancements we like to think we’ve made, what we understand about each other isn’t much at all.
Starting With An Open Mind
I feel, to some degree, that I’m coming into this conversation with a perspective that may leave me disadvantaged. I don’t identify as either white or black. Both Cherokee and Choctaw ancestry exists in our family makeup, along with a hodgepodge of European strains. I choose to identify with native peoples because I feel that ethnicity more closely relates to who I am. Interestingly enough, when my hair is long people tend to respond to me in the context of a person of native heritage. When my hair is short, though, as it is now, I am treated more like an old white guy.
I also have the ability to observe how Kat’s children are treated. While their biological paternity is black, they are both relatively light skinned. Little Man even has light blue eyes. Tipster is the darker of the two, but rarely has anyone, including teachers, identified them as being of mixed race. Their exposure to black people and black culture is limited to classmates and neighbors.
What we understand, the nature of our experience, is changed by how we racially identify. Our perceptions are based upon what we perceive in comparison to our own experience. Therefore, we must come into any conversation about race with our minds open to the fact that what we actually understand is very limited.
Understand We Have A Problem
Racial inequality in the United States is a problem. Denying the severity of that problem makes it worse. We see inequality in the justice system. We see inequality in the policing of black and white communities. We see inequality in education. We see inequality in legislative representation. If we genuinely want to understand each other more and improve the situation, we must first acknowledge that the problem is real. Unfortunately, not everyone seems able to do that.
While whites generally recognize that blacks are treated less fairly in legal matters, especially those involving police, their perception of inequality
 in more normal, everyday activities, such as applying for a loan or mortgage, at work, or when shopping or dining out
is skewed. Blacks understand the inequality of those situations because they experience the inequality of those situations. Whites, on the other hand, are blissfully unaware of the struggle blacks face simply trying to do the same things everyone else does.
Perception does not necessarily equate with reality, but the sizable gaps in those perceptions illustrate the severity of the problem. White people, as a group, don’t understand just how much inequality black people experience. Perhaps, as that awareness increases, the perspective can change. Helping people become aware of the problem is the first step toward solving it.
Politics Blur Our Vision
One major factor in how whites perceive racial inequality is political party affiliation. Generally speaking, Republicans understand far less the reality of racism and are often quite annoyed when the topic is even raised. They mistakenly think they have a good understanding when the reality is they don’t have a clue.
For example, on the question of how much attention is paid to race, 41% of whites say that too much attention is paid to the topic. By contrast, 58% of blacks say we discuss race too little. Break that down by political party, though, and the picture gets more interesting. Among White Republicans, 59% say too much attention is given to matters of race, among Independents, 42% agree, but only 21% of Democrats hold that belief. 49% of white democrats believe that too little attention is paid to racial inequality.
Some numbers we see played out in real life. 78% of white Democrats say the country needs to continue making changes addressing racial inequalities. By contrast, only 36% of Republicans agree and 54% of Republicans believe things are just fine the way they are. If you were wondering how a racist, bigoted xenophobe could become the presidential candidate of the Republican party, you now have your answer.
Understand We Must Move Forward
One place where both blacks and whites agree is that individual discrimination is a greater issue than institutional discrimination. How we treat each other, one person at a time, makes a tremendous difference. Improving our personal relationships with each other inevitably trickles up into how corporations and institutions treat people. We each make a conscious decision when we meet someone how we are going to treat them and that has to improve.
Legislative representation at every level of lawmaking has to improve as well. This is challenging so long as political gerrymandering of voting districts is legal. Especially in the South, there are too many districts whose lines are so impossible distorted that it is impossible for black people to elect a black representative. At the federal level, there are only 43 black members of the House of Representatives and, quite shamefully, only one in the Senate. Being woefully under-represented is criminal. We need more black representatives in Congress.
Finally, we need to accept that white people don’t understand the challenges of the black community nearly as much as they think. Whites must take a new look at the tremendous advantage their race affords them. The playing field is nowhere close to level and white people, in overwhelming numbers must commit to changing that situation.
Sure, you have a black friend or two, and maybe you even work with black people, but if you think you really understand the challenge of being black in America, you’re wrong. Open your eyes. Open your mind. Let’s change this country.
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