Fixing The News: Part 2 of 3
Fixing The News | Part 2 of 3
Contents
Morale
Terrible Things
IIS
Conflict Sells
A Real Example
__
Way back when, when Facebook was a thing, one of your authors of this blog tried to clean our feed by clicking Like only on benign things, like weddings and babies.
It worked; after a while the FB algorithms adjusted and were showing pretty much nothing but ads, babies and weddings.
Which … ended up being weird, and mostly useless, but the principle is sound.
The cyber systems running things aren’t nefarious. They’re simply programmed to present the things you show interest in – expecting that you’ll keep scrolling if you see more of them, which means they can show you more ads.
Okay. So maybe a little nefarious.
Morale
The custodians of the communication lines of the world, the sources of our information and news, get to decide what we’re fed, what we’re made aware of – basically, they get to shape the narratives that influence our lives.
What we hear we hear because they decide we should hear it.
What we don’t hear, well, they decide that too.
The idea of simply reporting the facts, whatever those facts may be, and letting us form our own opinions is gone. If it was ever really a thing.
Back in WWII those custodians of the news were steered by the British government toward not making headlines of disheartening stories, focusing instead on reporting events more likely to boost morale.
This tactic was used to good effect.
It kept the minds of the populace on victory, not setbacks. We have to believe that positive outlook influenced the overall outcome of the war.
It’s still manipulation, but at least it was manipulation for the good. Too much relentless reporting of terrible things becomes a form of propaganda in its own right, convincing people “it’s all bad” and that there’s no hope.
What’s the point in that?
(The point, of course, is multi-layered and serves the purpose of keeping us in our lanes, but we’ll not delve too far into that. This is only a 3-part series, after all.)
Terrible Things
We ask that question only to shine a light on the destructiveness such an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) has on our enthusiasm for life.
The ones pushing those narratives would prefer us suppressed and controlled; again, for reasons of their own.
The rest of us definitely do not want that, nor do we gain from it.
Terrible things do happen, yes. Grim things. Bleak things. We need to know about them only to the extent that we can address them. Terrible things must be confronted and handled, yes.
But they don’t need to be harped on beyond their solution.
The preponderance of our focus can’t be on the bad. (And yes, we did just use preponderance in a sentence.)
Our morale depends on keeping our eyes on the prize.
Our morale depends on our positive action, and the news of the positive actions of others.
There’s plenty of that to be reported on.
We dare say there’s way more of that source material to draw from than the other.
IIS
Instant Indignation Syndrome.
Let’s call it “IIS” (not to be confused with the ISS, the International Space Station), the condition whereby we react, often without thinking, to any bit of alarming or contentious news that goes against our decided-on beliefs, or which reinforces and aligns with our fixed ideas.
It affects many of us, and as individuals we aren’t wholly to blame.
IIS has come about through a relentless news cycle that pits us against each other’s ideals. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, and it’s been beautifully instilled in all of us. More often than not those ideals have been fabricated for us, and we’re usually given a This-or-That option, forcing us to side with one indignant group or the other, programmed nicely to spark Instant Indignation when the right buttons are pushed.
Usually we don’t even really stop to think about what we’re getting indignant about.
Again, not wholly our fault. It’s how the system works, it’s how it’s been designed, and it’s important we behave that way.
At least it’s important for the current system to continue.
Our strings have been tied (we’ve allowed them to be tied), and if we stop responding when they’re pulled the whole thing starts to get shaky.
Ultimately that would be a good thing.
A disruption of the current easy-divisiveness, the instant indignation, would begin to shift us toward considered thought and honest, unbiased evaluation of information. Open discussion, mindful consideration of facts – basically, all the things that would collapse Media and Politics as we know it.
Think we could suffer through that?
Wouldn’t you agree it’s time for objective consideration of the issues?
Offense comes easily these days, it seems.
Let’s change that.
Conflict Sells
Your authors of this blog have dabbled in screenwriting, video games, other fictional dialogues, and at least one of us has written a few sci-fi books, so we know the value of conflict.
Conflict sells.
Remember that skit from Family Guy? It’s called “The Even Couple”, a play on the old TV show ‘The Odd Couple”. In it we see quite clearly, and quite hilariously, how important conflict is for entertainment.
Conflict sells.
Controversy.
So yeah, we get it. Not only do we get it, we’ve actively cranked it out in the form of screenplays, books and games by the bucket loads. Conflict is juicy.
Conflict keeps us glued to the story.
Conflict is critical for fiction.
Storytelling is nothing without it.
Without it we put the book down. We turn off the screen. We walk away. Can you imagine a video game with no challenges? No boss fight? Conflict is what draws us like moths to the flame.
Which is exactly why the news exploits it.
It’s why we watch it.
Which is, therefore, why the news keeps doing it.
But come on.
Criminy.
Can we save the drama for our collective mamas? Can we keep the conflict in our fiction, where it belongs? Can we, instead, focus on the positive in our actual, real lives?
Let’s start paying attention to the news where we’re winning.
There’s plenty of that happening all around the world.
Skip the emotional storytelling, please. In all news. Just the facts. Let us get ourselves worked up, or not. We don’t need the news to tell us how to feel or what to think. We don’t need Hollywood screenwriters, we need reporters.
Plain and simple.
A Real Example
In 2021 Inspiration4 marked the world’s first all-civilian mission to orbit.
This was huge news.
Or at least it should’ve been.
Named in recognition of the four-person crew that raised awareness – and over $240 million – for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, this remarkable mission flew to orbit with a crew of civilians, only civilians, who then stayed in orbit for three days.
One of them was a physician's assistant from the hospital itself, Hayley Arceneaux.
Hayley, who herself suffered childhood cancer and was saved by the people at the very hospital where she now works, not only became an astronaut, she was instrumental in helping to raise the quarter of a billion dollars that went toward the St. Jude mission.
Civilians trained to become astronauts. They flew to space alone. They stayed there three days. They came back safely, on their own. They made a charity out of it to boot, helping one of the most worthy causes on the planet.
Yeah.
Epic. Groundbreaking. Monumental. History-making.
All the adjectives and hyphenated adjectives.
Netflix even did a whole special on it.
Where were the headlines?
Hm.
And this is our point. As consumers of the news these are the things we need to insist on seeing.
See you in Part 3.
Want to hear from us Friday mornings?
Every Friday our chief correspondent, Tai Rade (you’ll love her take on things), sends a recap of the week in space.
#FortySuns