Try this resolution on for size
Just in case you ran out, here’s a suggested resolution. Together, let’s strive to be better citizens in 2016.
How do we do that? Well, one way is to follow the advice uttered a couple years ago in Coeur d’Alene by noted constitutional expert Dr. David Adler. Adler suggested Americans would be better informed — and thus, participate more constructively in society — if they turned off the cable “news” stations and replaced or at least augmented the nonstop stream of opinion with actual news from multiple sources.
In his 2015 book “Lights Out,” one of the country’s top journalists, Ted Koppel, is similarly insightful. Although the following passage prefaced a broad and stunning analysis of our nation’s vulnerability to cyberattacks, the societal flaws that have led to that vulnerability are the same that hold us back as a citizenry from working together to solve important problems.
According to Koppel:
Today, reports of the day’s events are conveyed to the viewing public by way of alternate universes. The Fox News cable channel conveys its version of reality, while at the other end of the ideological spectrum MSNBC presents its version. They and their many counterparts on radio are more the result of an economic dynamic than a political one. Dispatching journalists into the field to gather information costs money; hiring a glib bloviator is relatively cheap, and inviting opinionated guests to vent on the air is entirely cost-free. It wouldn’t work if it weren’t popular, and audiences, it turns out, are endlessly absorbed by hearing amplified echoes of their own biases. It’s divisive and damaging to the healthy functioning of our political system, but it’s also indisputably inexpensive and, therefore, good business. And cable television and talk radio remain models of objectivity and restraint compared to what is routinely exchanged as “information” and “news” on the less restrained regions of the Internet. Even as digital tools elevate worthy voices once shut out of mainstream civic discourse, the Internet is also giving rise to “filter bubbles” that decrease users’ exposure to conflicting viewpoints and reinforce their own ideological frames.
We agree that it is not the cable networks’ fault or responsibility for the societal crevasses in America. It’s the consumers’ fault, and until we can turn off the noise and resolve problems together, citizenship and the future of this great nation will erode further.