How to Watch the News Now Alonzo Brooklyn
How to Watch the News Now by Alonzo Brooklyn Cover Design by Atinad Designs. Š Copyright 2017, St. Paul Press. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner, except for brief quotations included in a review of the book. Printed in the U.S.A.
Contents •
The Problem With “the News”
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How to Get Something Out of the Traditional News
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The “War” On the Media
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How the News is Made
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You Have the Power
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The Best News Sources
1 The Problem With “the News” The news media as we know it is in a state of disarray. Increasingly, the subject of the news we watch, read, and listen to is the media itself. Many are wondering if they can trust the “mainstream media.” Journalists have lamented the “war on the media.” Many want to know how they can discern “fake news” from real news. The hand-wringing over the state of the media can be nullified, at least for the receiver of the news, if one simple fact is understood. THE NEWS AS WE KNOW IT IS ENTERTAINMENT Nate Silver, founder and editor of the statistics blog FiveThirtyEight, stated back in 2012 that “a lot of news is really entertainment masquerading as news.” Mainstream news, no matter which medium it is distributed through, is designed to be entertaining. Every television network, every radio show, every newspaper, and every website wants as many eyes and ears as possible riveted on itself. Each of these news outlets is aware that there are hundreds of other news outlets fighting for the same eyes and ears.
So, what we call “the news” is deliberately designed to be as entertaining as possible in order to keep as many of us as possible watching, listening, reading, and clicking. Television news—CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS—is driven by ratings. News programs are canceled not because of a lack of journalistic integrity, or some other noble reason, but because not enough people are watching it. Who cares if the program delivers hard, unbiased reporting? Traditional television news is also driven by the knowledge that people have short attention spans. News programs are set up in segments—five minutes, ten minutes, and that's it. They move on from one story whether it has been reported on sufficiently or not because they want to keep the attention of the viewer. And to do that, they have to keep dangling something new in front of him or her. The fact is: You can't get to the bottom of hardly any story in just five or ten minutes. Another truth you need to realize about the traditional media is that most of it is driven by money. Television networks rely on advertising to pay their bills. The more viewers they have, the more people are watching those ads, and the more money the advertisers send to the networks. The same goes for radio.
An article in NiemanReports details the transformation from hard reporting to profit-making machines that television news organizations, particularly ABC, NBC, and CBS, have undergone in recent years: Years ago, there was no network news “business.” The Big Three broadcast television networks—ABC, CBS and NBC—all covered news, but none generally made money doing so. Nor did they expect to turn a profit from news programming. They presented news programming for the prestige it would bring to their network, to satisfy the public-service requirements of Congress and the Federal Communications Commission, and more broadly so that they would be seen as good corporate citizens. Back then, the networks earned enough money from entertainment programming that they could afford to run their news operations at a loss. And so they did. It is no exaggeration to say that just about everything has changed since then. Today, ABC, CBS and NBC operate in a competitive environment in which most viewers have dozens of channels from which to choose. That has
transformed not just TV news but the entire television industry. Those who own these networks—Disney (ABC), CBS Inc. with its major stockholder, Mel Karmazin, and General Electric (NBC)—all demand that their news operations make money. (You can read more of this article by Marc Gunther at NiemanReports.org.)
But it's not only television news that has turned its attention to profit. Over the past few years, newspapers have been shutting down left and right. Business Insider declared 2009, “the year the newspaper died.” According to Journalism.org, in 2016, advertising revenue dropped by 7% and digital only advertising now makes up 25% of print newspaper publishers' revenue. The main reason why newspapers are closing is because people are increasingly turning to the internet for their print-based news. And because people are no longer reading newspapers, advertisers have begun abandoning newspapers too. One might think that the internet would be free from the influence of money, but this has proven not to be the case. Traditional television news and newspapers have exported the ad-based model to the web. Today, you would be hardpressed to find a news website without ads. Internet news publishers face the temptation of publishing certain stories
or publishing certain stories in a certain way (such as with a misleading title) simply because they know it will increase clicks and pageviews. And more pageviews equals more adviews, and more adviews equals more money. These two influences—entertainment and money—have diluted the quality of the news over the past few decades. I'm sharing these things with you not to frighten you, but to inform you, not to make you angry or distrustful of the media, but to help you become a discerning recipient of the news.
2 How to Get Something Out of the Traditional Media Despite the shortcomings of the news media as we know it, the media in all its forms—print, television, radio, and the internet—is useful to a free, democratic society. It is certainly necessary if we want to be informed and discerning citizens in an increasingly interconnected world. Instead of getting upset with the traditional news media, I am going to share with you how to get something out of the news as we know it. And then, later on, I will share with you some proactive steps you can take that will place you above and beyond what the media offers. First, you need to understand that the media are not the guardian angels of society. Gone are the days of Walter Cronkite who could report the news with gravitas and somehow still manage to make you feel as if everything was going to be all right. Don't approach the news thinking that you are going to come away feeling better about the state of the world. You won't. You might feel worse. The most you can expect is that you will be better informed than you were before (though not fully informed).
We have to choose to accept the news for what it is, not for what we hope it could be. In that vein, I have learned to accept the news as entertainment. In the evening, after I have done my work for the day, I sit down with my dinner and watch the nightly news programs. I find it to be relaxing. Usually, I flip the channels between CNN, Fox, NBC, MSNBC, and sometimes CBS and ABC. Normally, they are all reporting on the same set of stories, each with a different slant. After an hour to an hour-and-a-half of this, I have seen all there is to see at the time being. This type of perspective enables you to get something out of the news whether you are conservative, liberal, or moderate. All it requires is that you have at least a slight interest in the what is happening outside the four walls of your home.
3 The “War” On the Media The collective woes of the media were litigated incessantly throughout the 2016 presidential campaign. The “left” complained about the “right-wing media.” The “right” complained about the “left-wing media.” And nearly everyone complained about “the mainstream media.” When it was all said and done, we learned that most of the traditional news media was out of touch with the heartbeat of the nation during that period of time. The election of Donald Trump as president put the entire media establishment on notice. A post-election New York Times article stated: The country’s major news organizations faced a question from their audiences that was laced with a sense of betrayal and anger: How did you get it so wrong? The question came in letters. It came in Facebook posts. Most ominously, it came in the form of canceled subscriptions. With a new administration [taking shape], news executives try to take stock of their mistakes and fix them on the fly, lest the fast-moving story leave them behind again.
Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said, “A lot of media outlets made a decision sometime after the convention that Donald Trump was beyond the pale and they no longer had to observe the normal rules of journalism and objectivity. I thought The New York Times was one of the worst offenders, but we were all guilty—myself included.” So, journalists are soul-searching and news organizations are scrambling to come up with a plumb line to abide by for the next four years and beyond. The election being over does not mean the media is off the hook. To the contrary, the media as we know it is facing more pressure than ever before. The opening days of the Trump administration previewed the combative nature this White House looks to have with the press. Note these words from Steve Bannon, one of the president's senior advisers: The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while. I want you to quote this: The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.
Liberals are pressuring journalists to be “tough” on the
new president, while journalists, afraid of appearing unfair, are grappling with holding the government accountable while also presenting fair and unbiased reporting. Trump and his cohorts are not alone in trying to keep the media at arm's length. According to former Washington Post editor Leonard Downie Jr., writing for the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Obama administration is also guilty: The administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration, when I was one of the editors involved in The Washington Post’s investigation of Watergate. Michael Oreskes, a senior managing editor of The Associated Press, told me months after the government, in an extensive leak investigation, secretly subpoenaed and seized records for telephone lines and switchboards used by more than 100 AP reporters in its Washington bureau and elsewhere. “Sources are more jittery and more standoffish, not just in national security reporting. A lot of skittishness is at the more routine level. The Obama administration has been extremely controlling and extremely resistant to journalistic intervention. There’s a
mind-set and approach that holds journalists at a greater distance.
So, the “war” on the media is real, but most of this war is superficial. It has no real meaning for the lives of everyday Americans. Here's why: Everybody hates the media when they are the subject of media criticism. Hillary Clinton blamed “the media” for constant talk about her “e-mails” during the election, which she repeatedly tried to state was a non-issue. Donald Trump blamed “the media” for...well, everything anybody ever said negative about him. Supporters of both candidates blamed the media for actively supporting the “other side.” Certainly, there are liberal-leaning and conservativeleaning news outfits. (In this case, they were mostly liberal and mostly hoping for Hillary Clinton as president.) However, caught in the middle, by and large the traditional news media feels threatened. They push back claiming to be the preachers of truth. Often, they over-correct, going too far to one side or the other. Writing in Fortune, Mathew Ingram warns his fellow journalists not to get caught up in the war:
The mainstream press—liberal, bi-coastal, lattedrinking know-it-alls, in the eyes of its critics— [were] the campaign punching bag from the beginning. Cooped up in pens at rallies, pointed at, laughed at, and in some cases even spit on. The "dishonest media." So how should we respond then? It's not the kind of rallying cry that stirs the blood, but as Atlantic writer Rosie Gray said, we should probably just do our jobs—that is, report the facts, without fear or favor. In some cases, that may involve some media outlets calling a Trump statement a lie. But this has to be a sober decision taken with care, if done at all, not a schoolyard taunt of "Liar! Liar!" Because if it's the latter, many will see it as simply an attack, and not bother to determine who is right.
If you want to be a discerning recipient of the news, don't get caught up in this juvenile mud-slinging and blamegaming either. This “war” is superficial. The only meaningful thing that comes out of it is who wins the perception game. And though that may be good for television ratings or presidential approval numbers, it doesn't matter in the long run because the truth will always win.
4 How the News is Made What you see television is not the real news. What you see on television is sliced, diced, polished, and packaged. It's just sound bytes, video clips, and screen grabs. You need to understand this when you watch the news. So, where is the real news? Or more specifically, where does real news come from? To explain what real news is, I am going to borrow some terms you might be familiar with from doing research papers in college. The first term is “primary source.” Real news comes from primary sources. According to the Library of Congress, “Primary sources are the raw materials of history—original documents and objects which were created at the time under study.” Our “time under study” is the present day. In order to get the real news, we must access primary sources about what is happening right now. Primary sources are the people and institutions who do things (or announce the doing of things) that get the wheels of the news grinding. If you want the real, raw, unedited news, you must go to the
primary sources. An example of a primary source would be the White House Press Office. Here is a copy of a recent news release from that office:
It looks boring, right? Just black text on white paper. No pictures, no audio, no video, no nothing. Yet, this is where the media gets their “news� from. A group of journalists from various outlets known as the White House Press Corp receive the information above directly from the White House Press Office and they develop their news from that. (Note: Primary sources are not always unbiased. The government normally has a narrative that it wants the people to believe as well.)
The primary sources lead to secondary sources. Secondary sources include newswires such as the Associated Press, Reuters, United Press International, and Agence FrancePresse. You normally don't hear these names in your everyday news consumption, but they are the reason why hundreds of outlets can report on the same story at virtually the same time. The wires take the raw news from primary sources, rewrite it, provide background information and context, get opposing or analytical views from experts and officials, and then dispense it to multiple outlets at once. If you want to get your news in a raw, yet readable format, with opposing views, and a little analysis, newswires are your best bet. Now, we move to third level news sources from which the majority of people get their news. These sources include television stations such as CNN, Fox, MSNBC; your local newspaper or radio station; as well as internet news sites such as The Huffington Post, The Blaze, The Daily Beast, and The Washington Times. There are three things you have to understand when dealing with third-level news sources. First, realize that all of these sources are biased. No matter how much they proclaim to be “fair and balanced,� they
each provide the news with a slant. When you access these sources, you are getting the news with an added perspective, and sometimes that perspective is wrong. Second, you must be wary of personality-driven news and opinion-based programs. Just because your favorite news anchor says something that does not make it right. Remember that talk shows and panel-based television segments dispense the opinions of the people on the talk show or panel. They are not news sources. They are there to provide their opinion. They are reflecting on the news based on their experience, their education, and their worldview. What they say is not infallible. Third, realize that the news is manipulated to generate conflict and argument. Split screens, shouting matches, and flared tempers are the stuff that keeps viewers watching. Jeremy Peter wrote in The New York Times, “the split screen has become just another device to keep viewers stimulated, a product of the 24-7 news cycle.� The conflict news trend has even been exported to the internet. Bloggers write dueling posts, criticizing each other from opposite sides of the web. Social media wildfires start on a weekly basis with errant tweets or misguided Facebook posts. Now, the news is not just about the news, but about the conflicts generated by the news. Learn to discern the difference.
Knowing how the news is “made� will help you become a discerning recipient of the news.
5 You Have the Power For the first time in the history of history, people can live in their own virtual reality, thanks to the democratization of news that the internet allows. This issue became apparent with the rise of “fake news” that became the real news during the recent election. Many people have lamented it. ‘Facts have gotten up and moved to Canada,’ they say. ‘Goodbye, empirical evidence.’ ‘Nobody listens to the media anymore.’ You’ve heard it all. Here’s the one thing everybody complaining about fake news needs to do. Stop complaining. And start doing this: Take control of the news you read, watch, and listen to. You don’t need anyone force-feeding the news to you. Don't get your news from misinformed friends on Facebook. Stop tuning in to only one person, one network, one website, or one radio station. Diversify. Don’t parrot all your opinions from your favorite columnist or pundit. Stop watching just Fox or just MSNBC or just CNN. Watch all three. Take it upon yourself to read from a variety of news sources.
As I stated before, news reporting today is biased. Assume — always assume — that the reporter or network has a bias. Even the most trusted names in news can be wrong. In this case, the internet is your friend. Unlike what some would have you to believe, the internet did not create “fake news.” Nor did Facebook, Twitter, or Google. It’s not their fault if someone abuses the privilege of having an account on one of these platforms. Instead of complaining, use the power of the internet and the independence that it gives you to your advantage. You can easily search online to fact check the claims you hear from third-level news sources. You have the power. If an issue matters to you, you owe it to yourself to uncover the real facts. You owe it to yourself to look at both sides — or every side — of the issue. And the internet allows you to do that. David Shaw writes in the Los Angeles Times, “Too many people these days are intellectually lazy. They don't want to sort through conflicting reports, often presented in a relatively dry, factual fashion, to figure out what's important and who's right in any news-making scenario.” Don't be one of these people. In your attempt to decipher what's real and what's fake,
you don’t have to make other people the enemy. If someone is sharing, reposting, or retweeting false information online, don’t assume they’re actively trying to deceive others. They, in fact, may be the ones who are deceived. Also, while you are watching for biases in others, watch out for your own biases too. Don't believe things simply because you feel they are true or ought to be true. The word “truthiness” comes to mind here—coined by Stephen Colbert, it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2016. It means: “The quality of seeming or being felt to be true, even if not necessarily true.” The truth is often different from your feelings. “Fake news” is probably not as big of an issue as some are making it out to be. However, remember: the power is in your hands. You do not have to believe something simply because it is reported as “news.”
The Best Online News Sources PRIMARY SOURCES •
The White House Newsroom – https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog
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The U.S. Department of Justice – https://www.justice.gov/news
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The U.S. Department of Defense – https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases
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U.S. House of Representatives – http://www.house.gov/
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U.S. Senate – http://www.senate.gov
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Be sure to check your local and state government websites for more primary news sources. SECONDARY SOURCES
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Associated Press – http://hosted.ap.org/
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Reuters – http://www.reuters.com
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United Press International – http://www.upi.com
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Agence France-Presse – https://www.afp.com/en/home
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Canadian Press – http://www.thecanadianpress.com/english/online/On lineTopstory.aspx
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Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata http://www.ansa.it/english/
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Deutsche Presse-Agentur – http://www.dpainternational.com/news/international/
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BNO News – http://bnonews.com/news/index.php/news/landing
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Factwire News Agency THIRD-LEVEL SOURCES
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Google News – http://news.google.com
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Yahoo! News – http://www.yahoo.com/news/
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MSN Homepage – http://msn.com
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The Drudge Report – http://www.drudgereport.com
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USA Today – http://www.usatoday.com
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U.S. News & World Report – http://www.usnews.com
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The New York Times – http://www.nytimes.com
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Bloomberg – http://www.bloomberg.com
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The Washington Post – http://www.washingtonpost.com
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Politico – http://www.politico.com
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The Atlantic – http://www.theatlantic.com
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The Daily Beast – http://www.thedailybeast.com
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The Hill – http://ww.thehill.com
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The Wall Street Journal – http://wsj.com
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McClatchy DC – http://www.mcclatchydc.com
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Business Insider – http://www.businessinsider.com
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BBC – http://www.bbc.com
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The Telegraph – http://www.telegraph.co.uk
The Good News The news can sometimes be depressing. There's no doubt about that. But 2,000 years ago, God sent His Son Jesus Christ to this earth to die on the cross for our sins so that we could be saved from sin and the punishment of sin. No matter what else happens in the world, this is eternal good news for mankind. But this is good news that calls for us to act. If you do not trust Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin and hell, this news will be of no benefit to you. Here is how you can accept Jesus Christ as your Savior today: 1. Accept the fact that you are a sinner, and that you have broken God’s law. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 7:20, “For there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good, and sinneth not.” Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” 2. Accept the fact that there is a penalty for sin. The Bible states in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death…” 3. Accept the fact that you are on the road to hell. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 10:28, “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in
hell.” The Bible says in Revelation 21:8, “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” 4. Accept the fact that you cannot do anything to save yourself! The Bible states in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace are ye saved through faith: and that not of yourselves: it is a gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.” 5. Accept the fact that God loves you more than you love yourself, and that He wants to save you from hell. Jesus Christ said in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” With these facts in mind, please repent of your sins, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and pray and ask Him to come into your heart and save you this very moment. The Bible states in the book of Romans 10:9, 13: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
If you are willing to trust Christ as your Saviour, please pray the following prayer: Heavenly Father, I realize that I am a sinner. For Jesus Christ sake, please forgive me of my sins. I now believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ died, was buried, and rose again. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life. Amen. If you just trusted Jesus Christ as your Saviour, and you prayed that prayer and meant it from your heart, you are now saved from Hell and you are on your way to Heaven. For more information to help you grow in your new found faith in Christ, go to GospelLightSociety.com and read "What To Do After You Enter Through the Door".