Tell Me What to Think

I am tired of the experts. Take them away. Far away. I want some peace.

There was a time, about 90 years ago, when all Americans learned about current events from people who wrote for newspapers and magazines. These folks, we hoped, had done their due diligence, and were presenting us with the straight facts. There were times, of course, when print journalists took advantage of our reliance on them, even going so far as to provoke wars that we couldn’t see. But for the most part, journalists took their responsibility quite seriously.

As the middle of the 20th century unfolded in a blaze of technological glory, radio and television journalists were added to the fold. They began as experts – a Walter Cronkite or David Brinkley portraying an air of distinction and class, presenting us the news without commentary. Tough TV reporters, from Dan Rather to Ted Koppel, brought us a powerful and informative combination of words and images. They worked hard, and we trusted their reports.

The past 30 years have brought a well-documented technological revolution, one that has given us the ability to do so much more than we could decades ago, and with such breathtaking celerity. I’m as pleased as the next guy that I can use my debit card, and watch cable TV, and check my e-mail, and send a text to my wife. Amazing stuff.

But there’s always a price that we pay for the progress we make. In the case of journalism, the proliferation of cable stations and web sites has led to a fervent competition for readers and viewers. Whatever gives your ratings a boost, you go ahead and do. Whatever increases your number of web-site hits, you do.

And what most of these 21st-century news sources have found is that the modern media consumer likes an abundance of commentary. When we’ve got the ability to switch channels and web sites with the click of a button, we’re much less likely to spend any time on a point of view with which we disagree. So if your consumer is self-selecting his news anyway, why not toss out a bunch of opinion-based “news,” and know that if your opinions match his point of view, he’s sticking with you? Create a cable show or a blog or a web site, put someone on a soap box, and let the consumers come to you.

This is where we find ourselves in this summer of 2009. And the results are not pretty. It’s not the details of the health care reform act that we get – it’s the spin, and hence the misinformation. It’s not the economic background we get, to better understand how our financial system works – no, instead we get the advice, much of it conflicting, on what we should do with our money. Even in matters such as sports, it’s not the news we focus on so much as the expert “fantasy sports” consequences of David Wright’s injury or Brett Favre’s comeback.

We live in a world of shouting voices, all of them trying to tell us what to do. They desperately want us to spend time with them, and they’re doing the same thing that mountebanks were doing 150 years ago, selling quack medicines from atop a platform in town squares across the country. They’re playing on our insecurities, telling us that they’ve got the solution to what ails us, and that we ignore them at our own peril. They just have a slicker presentation, with graphics and YouTube spots.

It’s quiet tonight. I’ve got the TV off, and I’m getting ready to sit down and get back to the Dave Eggers book I’ve been reading. I can hear the crickets outside, and they sound nice. They sound like they get along, and even appreciate the value of a little consensus once in awhile.

I’ll return to the madness in the morning. But when I do, I’ll try to fight off those insecurities, and look for the straight news first. I want to make up my own mind, and take my time in doing it.