The News
Our beloved President talks about “Fake News”. The opposition talks about White House manipulation of the truth. The polls are treated as if they any more have meaning. What is going on? All the attacks and counterattacks are part of the polarization in American politics.
I have another criticism of the news. My idea of news is reporting in what has and is happening. Opinion is what someone thinks about what is happening, not the events. Analysis is just bullshit.
A huge amount of what we are fed as news is not news. It is speculation about what is going to happen. Problem is, we can’t predict the future with any degree of accuracy. All the endless talk about what is going to happen is based on laziness. Rather than do reporting on what is happening, just talk about what might happen.
Sometimes the rhetoric is called analysis, but an analysis is supposed to explain existing conditions. There is reporting on what the President is saying and doing about people crossing Mexico to attempt to gain asylum in the United States. Analysis would explain the underlying motives for the rhetoric and troop movements. What we get is speculation about will happen when they get to the border and what Trump will do then. Nobody knows, including Trump and the migrants.
Trump gets some justification for calling the speculation fake news, the media sells advertising, and the cloud of bullshit frustrates rational people trying to figure out what is going on. The media seems to be convinced speculation is solid reporting, Trump callers it fake, and we get clouds of nothing obscuring what is really going on.
I don’t have any trouble with speculation if it is billed as such. I object to including speculation in what are supposed to be news stories. The problem is more acute with an election coming up. Rather than reporting what candidates are saying and if it is true, the talk is about which liar is going to win. It’s magnified by speculation about Ohio, Texas, Grand Junction, or a Waco. Lots of ink and airtime, no real news.
I wanted to get active in some current campaigns here in Colorado, but I am too angry and frustrated to get out there. I think I will read and pray instead.