An Ongoing Search for Truth Part II

My morning rounds of news providers includes a couple that skew far right-wing. In case you’re unaware, that’s not quite the opposite of what I am, but it’s in that direction. I’d call myself centre-left wing. I’m more like Mark Carney than far-left leaning Justin Trudeau.

I won’t name those right-wing outlets because they deliver a slanted view of the news I don’t want to share. However, that’s also the point of reading them! I want to know what the “other side” is saying about what I’m seeing with my own eyes. And I think those on the far-right could do with a little lefty perspective in their mornings, too.

Creative Editing 101

Here’s a great example. Barack Obama was interviewed a few days ago, after the “ape” video was put out by Trump. I watched the entire thing. In a lightning round of questions at the end, the interviewer asked whether aliens were real. Obama said he thinks they are but he’s never seen evidence of them. Then he said something to the effect of, “unless it’s SO secret that they keep it from the President.” It was tongue in cheek. In other words, if there were aliens here, he would have been told when he was in the White House.

The right-wing outlets called the interview “wacky” and said Obama was “out there.” Um, sorry. Just WHO are the conspiracy theorists here?! Right-wing conspiracies have circled for years that there are alien bodies and space ship parts in a White House bunker. Now they say HE is wacky for saying there aren’t any? Other, liberal-friendly headlines pointed to Obama’s comment that there was a “lack of shame” about the ape video.

Most of the interview was about the current temperature in US politics and how the Democrats must act. It was sane, intelligent, critical of the current administration – yes – but also critical of his own party. After watching it, I was more interested in how the Dems needed to position themselves to win. None of the headlines hit on the high point for me.

Busting Out of the Bubble

But imagine that you get all your information in a far right-wing bubble. All you’d see is that the former President was wacky and out there. This is why I believe it’s important to at least skim over what the opposition is saying. It’s a little like looking at a fault line on the planet. You can see clearly where the cracks have formed and how information is designed to divide us.

The only way to escape the bubble is to first realize you’re in a bubble. Personally, I don’t want to read only material I agree with. That doesn’t teach me anything about humanity and situations I’m unfamiliar with. Maybe I can learn something from another perspective? Sometimes, I do.

Several popular podcasts and YouTube shows are now being sponsored by a service called Ground News. (I have never used or read it, which is why I’m not linking to it.) This service apparently scours the Internet for different versions of the same story. This way, you can read all sides – or at least the headlines – and decide what to believe.

The News the Way You Want it

The news used to be just “the news.” Walter Cronkite or whomever would appear on TV and tell us what happened today. We now know we can’t simply trust that we will get the full picture. People love to claim “mainstream media” ignores big stories and inserts bias. The problem is, that some now do. But not all. As a journalist for decades, I only met one newscaster who deliberately cut facts to make newscasts match his beliefs. He later became a talk show host where that bias belonged. He also had no integrity or ethics about his work. I’m happy to say he was rare, and is now retired.

Ronan Farrow is an amazing investigative reporter. He helped launch the #MeToo movement and exposed the Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct story. Not only that, he revealed NBC’s attempt to suppress the story. (It was ultimately published by the New Yorker.) His reporting won a Pulitzer Prize. But he is one of the few independent investigators I’d trust. Not many can leave a media organization and take their story with them. And others are just kooky loons spewing ideas from their imaginations. It’s important to know the difference.

Finally, let me add that I spend very little time on the left/right, us/them stuff. I do my morning news rounds and then go on with my day and forget it. When it comes to information consumption, I’d much rather watch Neil deGrasse Tyson teach me something. Or have Neal Brennan and a guest make me laugh on the Block podcast.

But a search for the truth, even if it’s just for a ten-minute start to my day, is important. I don’t want anyone, left, right, middle or anywhere else, putting thoughts into my head that don’t ring true. It’s all just information. At the end of the day, I’m happy if I don’t even have an opinion about what I’ve read. The “fake” news media, on either side, runs on outrage. That’s a price I refuse to pay.