I’m not thrilled with news. Any news. I can’t abide right-wing lies based on the opposite of what happened, especially when they are talking about things through which I lived and which I’ve seen. For shear blatant not-even-a-hint-of truth lying, they are the winners. But the left of the aisle crap is only nominally better. They may begin from a hint of truth, but then take some minor thing and blow it up to something gigantic. Put up a headline on it which sounds as if an astounding event occurred. So whatever it was in the beginning, it ends up a lie.
At the root was something real, but the end is nonsense. I would have to be a fool to believe it. At this point, I don’t believe anything.
My personal political allegiances is not news. I don’t need news organizations to approve or disapprove on my behalf. That’s not the point of news.
I want information, data, and facts based on a recognizable reality. I want the news to give me an informed, intelligent, and preferably neutral (or as close as possible) idea of what’s going on. I don’t want overblown headlines about how Trump is about to be impeached. Because he isn’t about to be impeached (yet) and anyone with half a brain knows that. I don’t want shouted headlines about stuff that isn’t happening and will never occur. Nor do I want distorted stories which only make the stuff in which I believe look stupid.
I don’t want right-wing revisions of news that never happened and never will — or left-wing fairy tales, either.
It’s hard to find believable news from any source. I don’t trust anything from any form of social media. Each has its own version of what they think I want to hear. I don’t want to hear what they think I want to hear. I want to know what happened. What was seen. What was written. Then I will decide what I believe.
In today’s world, is there room for reality?
We’ve been watching a PBS series about World War 1. It was a terrible time. It was also when many of the myths, fables, and lies with which we are now living, began. It was the time when we started thinking we were fighting for democracy, and that somehow, we were “the right country” to defend democracy everywhere. It wasn’t true then. It isn’t true now.
We have been believing those same lies since 1914, the beginning of the breach between our political halves. It was the start of what we see every day, more than 100 years later.
A hundred years of lying.
Wilson could have gotten everything he wanted from Congress including the League of Nations, but refused to accept it because (are you ready?) the “deal” was offered by the wrong party.
Just in case you think the world has changed a lot? The answer is it has changed … but a lot less than you might think and in the worst possible ways.
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Categories: #News, Media, social media
SERENDIPITY: SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
Marilyn, it’s as if we are just opening our eyes to some profound truths. It’s safer not to believe everything we hear or read, but read and listen we must especially from all sides.
Leslie
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I double and triple check sources … and even then, i still wonder.
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I think you have to do that. Sometimes the details come out and you realize they were all wrong.
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When I think news, I think wag the dog. Nothing else. I never believe anything outright. Sad because some of it could be truth. I am lucky to be around so many people from all over the world and can get a sense of what really happened from listening to peoples accounts, from both sides. Then I start digging for the truth. It can be hard to find.
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Some of it probably IS true, but so much isn’t, it’s pretty hard to tease it apart and figure out what is what.
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I’m just over it. I think it is now “written” for people who believe reality TV is reality. I remember years ago in a life drawing session (in the late 70s) in which they played an FM station while we were all working, the news came on. A guy sitting behind me (Garth) said, “Nope, not my news.” I kind of fell in love with him at that moment.
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I hate that we now have “your news” and “my news,” as if somehow, these are positions to take. There needs to be ONE news, then we can each have an opinion about it. But this way, your opinion IS news. I kind of hate it.
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Garth’s point was that (even in the 70s) news was propaganda
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Yup. News is propaganda. The real question is whether it is OUR side or the OTHER side.
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Both
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We watch a few minutes — headlines — of the news and then we have to turn it off. I don’t know if it makes us more depressed or angry, but whatever it is, I want it to just go away.
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i am frustrated and saddened by it each day
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I share your feelings, Ksbeth.
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I like the new layout by the way! 🙂
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Thank you. MUCH easier to read. WordPress decided to change my colors and I couldn’t read it, either.
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Largely thanks to social media I believe objectivity has largely been replaced in our ‘modern’ world by opinion treated as ‘truth’. ‘Reality’ is now largely what someone thinks is real and if someone else thinks so too, it is confirmed as being ‘the’ reality for them.
it can be hard to next to impossible to convince someone that their truth is based upon one or more lies. Even when actual solid evidence is within their reach. 😦
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The news has been heading in this direction for a long time … at least 40, maybe 50 years. News has become entertainment, so the battle is about ratings, not accuracy. Presumably this will eventually change. I sure hope so.
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After living most of my life in Switzerland, in the middle of Europe I have now got both oopnions of the last war and not only the british point of view.
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All those years of Garry fighting to be a neutral voice in the news and now, it seems more about the reporter and HIS opinions (or his bosses opinions) than whatever actually happened. It’s a sad state for the news.
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The news has taken an ideological turn which is sad. They cannot report anything nowadays without distorting the facts and shaping the reality according to their ideological comfort.
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I still don’t understand why ideology has any place in news. It isn’t supposed to BE like this.
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I wish they would understand soon.
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When I was a child we had two sets of encylopedias. The older set was British, the other which we acquired in the mid sixties was American. I spent quite a bit of time reading the history volumes and could not help noticing the different slant that each took on World War Two. Even at ten I could see that each had their own perspectives the British one dwelling on Britain’s role and the American one slightly giving the impression that victory was all down to the USA. I guess that was when I realised there was more than one side to every story even amongst allies.
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We got “The Book of Knowledge” which was a sort of encyclopedia but not exactly. It wasn’t just information. There were stories, poems, and a lot of pictures. It was like a huge volume of giant magazines for adults and kids. They had a lot of pages full of pictures of terrified children in war zones. Those pictures are STILL stuck in my head, all these years later.
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