2- To be fair, 21st century media are stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand they suffer a paucity of old-style journalists & beat-reporters; on the other hand they face stiff competition & ânewsâ overkill from new forms of media, what the French call GAFTA;
3- that is to say Google Apple Facebook Twitter Amazon and 24-hour news channels etc.) Thus the Media today are no more than glittering (that is to say cheap vulgar bling bling) platforms for sensationalism, scoops, âcitizen journalism,â oversimplifications, jingles, slogans,
4- punchlines, shock-jock âfast-foodâ type of opinion (not to say opinionated) journalism and talk-show-type âreportingâ at the expense of substantive probing investigative journalism and transmission of knowledge.
5- In this world of superficiality, where the âhonorâ of being a journalist (or for that matter a cognoscenti) is given to those who donât deserve it, EVERYONE becomes an expert, a pundit, an analyst, an interpreter, a philosopherâŠ
6- This, in a sense, is âgoodbye" to true researchers and specialists who spend a lifetime in archives, laboratories, reading rooms, and the field (what journalists call âthe beatâ) honing their skills, scouring archives, reading, decorticating, interpreting, ruminating, and
7- doubting themselves a million times in meditation before reaching âdiscernmentâ and shooting their mouths. We live unfortunately in societies saturated in people imbued in certitude, with no place left for reading, reflecting, analyzing, and ultimately coming out with the
8- (very human) sense of humility and admission that one cannot possibly know everything, that as humans and non-specialists and general audiences (and simply human beings) we are unavoidably ignorant of many subjects. We cannot possibly know everything!!!
9- To reuse Bertrand Russellâs apt adage "The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.â So there you have it! Thatâs where dwells the problem; the origin of our debility as ânews consumersâ
10- (and note the term ânews consumers,â NOT âreaders.â) Our problem, and MY PROBLEM with the Media (ALL MEDIA, chief among them the so-called âmedia of recordâ) issue from this obscene world of âready-madeâ âone-size-fits-allâ âprefabâ lapidary peremptory thought
11-dispensed by
@ABC @BBC @GeorgeStephanopoulos @NYTimes @CNN @JakeTapper @FoxNews and the omnipresent Social Media types brimming with âexpertsâ looking for validation, instant gratification and recognition w/ âThumbsUpâ âThumbsDownâ âLikeâ âunLike" âFriendâ âCancelâ âunFriendâ
12- The problem is also, as mentioned earlier, with consumption & consumerism. Note the modern (Woke) adage of âConsuming Mediaâ rather than âReadingâ and/or âWhat have you read lately, and what did you think of it.â Thatâs what the modern world expects of us:
13- Performance. Airtime. Quantity as opposed to quality. And in that sense, admitting âignoranceâ on certain topics, or approaching questions alien to us with humility & honest recognition that we manifestly do not know much about them (or do not know anything at all about them)
14- is viewed as a deficit, a failing, rather than a normal human quality. Thus, humans become âlosers,â on Twitter and the rest, because, you know, the authority today is dispensed by the likes of
@GeorgeStephanopoulos and
@TuckerCarlson and
@JakeTapperâŠ
15- This is all an issue of cause and effect. Journalists donât practice their trade anymore. And philosophers and historians and scientists have become media sensations, influencers in modern lingo. And yet, discernment & knowledge are the result of a long process of maceration,
16- advancing at a glacial pace. It is impossible for us to know everything. It is impossible for us to have all the answers immediately (we may of course always Google or Wiki, but then youâll have a Google or Wiki (quicky) authority, not your own probing and studying
17- and reading and reflecting and trial and error etc., leading to illumination the old fashioned way.) Today, everybody is an epidemiologist, and environmentalist, a Middle East expert, an American-politics pundit, a legal scholar, a Constitutional lawyer...
18- I retch at the thought of 100s of millions getting knowledge (âconsuming knowledgeâ to use a Woke term) from
@Twitter @NYTimes @CNN and the rest. How about some Socratic humility for a change? Like Bertrand Russell, being wary of people full of certitude may be a good place
19- to start. We should be capable of accepting that there are certain things that we donât know, that we need to investigate, study, mull over, ponder, reflect upon, learn about, slowly, cautiously, deliberately, with circumspection and patience, but also with humility.
20- Thatâs what intellectual honesty is all about: recognizing our ignorance! Ignorance NOT as permanent failing, but as human quality; a deficit that we aim to correct, through research & careful study & reflection.
Now back to News and Knowledge âconsumptionâ on Social Media.
