The headline says that people who only get their news from an ideologically aligned source -- Fox News or MSNBC, in particular -- aren't well-informed on actual news. Viewers of the Sunday-morning political-interview shows do better; the people who listen to NPR newscasts do better still.
But the statistics accompanying the story show that even the best-informed are batting below .500 on their knowledge of current events. That's not great.
When I worked in radio, I absorbed five minutes of network news every hour, mostly by osmosis. Back then, five radio networks and two wire services were providing short hourly newscasts, and the majority of stations ran them. What CBS, NBC, ABC (in four or five versions!), Mutual, NPR, AP and UPI offered was a Cliff's Notes version of the first draft of history -- but it was current, fact-based and largely personality-free. Five minutes (or less) doesn't leave time to be anyone except a newscaster. It left me well-informed enough to ace news quizzes -- and I rarely paid particular attention to the newscast; it was a five-minute break from playing records and commercials.
There's a whole lot of personality out there and no matter who you are, one of them is probably focused on the stuff that gets your blood boiling. Try and get yourself some news, too. You need some greens to provide what all that red meat fails to give.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
3 comments:
I've been following Ground News for a bit, as they not only aggregate different news sources, but also tell you things like bias, who owns them, and factuality.
Foreign news is also interesting- they're biased, but it's a bit of a different bias. Of course, one needs to skip obvious propaganda mills like Russia Today.
The radio station I worked at in High School and College had teletypes for AP, UPI and the National Weather Service.
Part of my job evenings and weekends (along with DJing, and being the Engineer on Duty) was to go through the teletypes and literally cut and paste a set of stories for the big news casts at sign on, Noon, 5 and 10/signoff.
So, even though much of the teletype output went into the trash, I did get to see what they thought the big stories of the day were, along with listening to the hourly ABC news cast coming in on the dedicated phone line. Between that and newspapers, I think I was pretty up on current events with not much effort (reading is not something I consider an effort)
Now days I have to jump around to multiple sources (thank goodness for RSS) to try to get the same effect. And I really, really, really miss them morning Intel reports I read every day when I was in the AF. The contrast with what the media was reporting was...often interesting.
Yeats:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
I'll say, and it's Trump as the AntiChrist
with (many of) the Christianist evangelicals worshipping him
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