To be honest, I already hated the news media before this election cycle started. Outside negativity doesn't really bode well with me. My life already has enough stress and negativity from my own daily grind activities that I don't need the massive extra dosage various news media give.
You know what, though? Nice things don't really sell in the world. They don't boost ratings, and they don't typically inspire change in people. If things are hunky-dory, why do anything different? There's no reason to! Change is a lot of work, change is scary and the human race likes to avoid it whenever possible. A lot of times, to really inspire change, you have to move people in dark and/or mountainous ways, and that brings us to the news media of today.
See, in the past, the news used to actually report on things. It used to give you the story, the facts, and show you the brutal reality of situations. There was no flourish added for ratings boosts. If you look at how the news was given during the Vietnam war, it was vicious. People in the United States had a lot of detail to what was going on, and that created a problem. Suddenly the government had to deal with a large movement of people that had seen a sliver of the brutal reality of war. Naturally, they didn't like what they saw about it, so they rallied together to be a driver of change.
Nowadays, the media reports on things, sure, but they all add their own little spin on it to try and bring you to a certain side. The opinion is already in the news, making it difficult to generate your own. It may pit you against the political party that is in office right now, or it may pit you against the party trying to get in office, but there is no station that sees through both parties' layers of bull s#*@ and calls them out on it. It's really well orchestrated pitting of people against each other. It sounds like a huge conspiracy theory, but keeping people angry at each other helps keep their united anger and attention off of the government.
I think it really boils down to a conversation I was having with a family member in the wake of the Pulse shooting in Orlando. See, they mentioned that some news stations were saying that part of "the problem" was that the Islamic community does not actively speak out against these attacks that are supposedly carried out by "radical Islam." They are a closed-off and tight-knit community, and they take the barrage of criticism that ISIS indirectly brings upon them instead of educating the public on the differences between the two groups of people. Therefore, how can we trust them and feel safe if they aren't speaking out?
That was reported? What?
My response was to first ask how many Muslims they had access to to actually see if they were silent and unresponsive. Their response was none. Well, that's a problem. Being at MIT, with a lot of different people, religions and cultures, I know people do speak out against it. I asked one of my Muslim friends to explain the differences to me. Was it awkward to ask about? Sure. I didn't want them thinking I thought anything like that of them because I definitely did not. I just wanted to understand better so I didn't contribute to the fear being spread and could correct things I heard that were wrong. In addition, other non-conventional media outlets have things that main-stream news stations do not. Older generations may not see it, though, because they don't have the access. I've seen Facebook videos where Muslims go to Islamophobic rallies to show that they are people the same way they are. It is to educate and show they aren't ISIS members or bad people just because of the faith they follow. I haven't seen those actions reported on by any news stations.
My second question was to ask if any of the news stations brought in Muslims from the local Islamic community or global leadership to talk about the differences between a devout Muslim and a member of a group like ISIS. I feel that, if they did, it would be a great way to educate the public of the United States and to eliminate this fear that is growing before it is too out of control, which honestly may be too late.
Well, that answer is very few to none, as far as I can tell.
Republican news stations won't bring on a Muslim to talk about those things because why would they, right? Educating the public doesn't help their fear-mongering campaign they got going on now, and fear and hate make it so easy to rally people behind a cause. That's why the dark side is so easy to succumb to, people! Star Wars has real world application! It would be such a harder struggle for the White House without it. Doable, but way harder.
It isn't just Republicans, though. Democratic news stations seem incredibly hesitant to indicate any type of domestic problem with ISIS or anything like that because that takes away from their gun agenda. If it was a terrorist attack, gun laws make that shooting much more difficult to stop in the minds of the general public. The thought becomes, "Well, terrorists just have guns. Hard to stop with a gun law..." Fear of a local, unhinged citizen, however, makes gun laws much more necessary and easy to support. To top it off, they then cultivate a hatred of those who, for whatever reason, even with all the carnage, just can't seem to put down their guns.
Don't worry, I'm not only showing support for my second amendment right (which I do support, by the ways). See, the same thing goes for stations who say nothing has to be done about guns. Sorry to say, but that is also just not true. Time to suck it up and say there is a problem. Something should be done, yes, but you'll never get the ball rolling with such extremes. Compromises need to be met first. Sadly, politics isn't as instantaneous as our social lives now a days! It takes time, no matter how passionate you are about it or how gruesome what your fighting for is. Check out this article I stumbled on that has a great middle ground. I hadn't really heard it in the debate before, but it's better than just polar stubbornness.
We probably won't hear about it through big news, though, because that means people would be working together towards something in the middle when there can only be extremes. Too many big investments in each political party that are way too different from one another to allow that. Go big or go home, and use the news that so many people watch every night to accomplish those plans.
We need a change in that style of reporting. It just isn't right. Why does the United States' media have to have an opinion on what they are reporting to me? I just want the facts, let me develop my own opinion. I've often heard that international news outlets provide better coverage of our own news because it's actually far less biased, so I definitely need to check that out.
My family has always been conspiracy theorists. It's just what we do. In regards to the media, we say that it waves one hand in front of you while the other hand of government does something else. I think it's time to go looking for the other hand. How to go about doing that is a complete mystery to me.
The other thing is this: maybe this is all crazy mumbo-jumbo. Who knows? Honestly, I'm just fed up with all the hate feeding going on with no real talk of how to improve the situation. Spewing hate and yelling and stamping our feet won't improve anything, it just separates us more.
My rant is over. What do you guys think? Share and comment your opinion.
Also, shameless plug: a new vlog is up with that time lapse I talked about two weeks ago. Check it out here.
