The Information Conundrum

The Information Conundrum

The foundation of all judgments is information. We live and thrive in an age of information. Don’t know something? Just look online. So why is it that we are told ‘don’t believe everything you hear’, or ‘CNN is full of bs’? How is it that we have come to, in some cases even, despise the very people and organizations tasked with giving us information? The News has lost its credibility. (Maybe this is why people spend so much time online…) We need the truth.

To fix the problem, we need to first figure out why it happened in the first place. It helps to first begin with the purpose of the whole system. The purpose of the “media” is to inform the people of what is happening in the world; to allow that information to aid the populous to make rational and moral decision in life. This could be as simple as a farmer determining the price to sell his corn, or all the way to determining who will lead the entire country. The farmer might see that there was a heat wave that caused crops in the area to burn up. With a limited amount of corn, he might set his price a little higher to ensure he can feed his family. Too high, and fewer people will buy his corn; too low, and all his corn is gone, with maybe not enough money to support his farm and family. His life is dependent on the reports in the news. Similarly, with politics, knowing what a representative stands for impacts with whom you place you trust. If you work as a part of a union, and the person running (the idea of Republican and Democrat is a rabbit hole for another day) is against the idea of unions, you don’t want to vote for him. But you see in the paper that so-and-so is doing well amongst union groups, so you think that he is a worthy candidate. Or, you see your man running for president, and suddenly he is under investigation for something he supposedly did years ago. Do you trust him as much now?

But why would any information in the news be incorrect? In a word, unprofessionalism. Reporters and writers have, according to Sharyl Attkisson, author of The Smear, exempted themselves from adhering to principles taught to them in journalism school. Small errors that used to be occasional and corrected, are now ignored and even promoted. If a correction is made, little weight is put behind it, most times too little to overshadow the egregious report and its ramifications. This is compounded when to subject they are sometimes covering is shrouded in secrecy or drama. Opinions from said journalists now join the ranks of the actual facts in their reports. And on the political side, what ought to be an equal analyzation of two candidates, more often than not if one of them messes up they are severely criticized, whereas the other might hear nothing because ‘we all know what he(she) meant to say.’  The end result is that Americans have an extremely difficult time distinguishing the two. They simply cannot trust them. 

Journalists must be held to a higher standard, and mistakes will have to be not only publicly announced, but in addition there will be some sort of either pay cut or, depending on the severity of the issue, a termination of contract. But what this now requires is a means of checking any such fact brought into question. This requires support from ALL the other various sections of the government, and ultimately an honest population that is willing to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. As soon as someone wants to manipulate information for their own gain, that is where the problem begins again.

So what can I do here at home? The best solution is for each and every man to be honest, and to stick to the rules outlined, whether that means a journalist being a good reporter, or just a man being a good and just man. This does not mean to NOT experiment with ideas, but there must be a strict guideline to presenting that information.