Dumb and dumber: how the news media encourages American ignorance

In a recent piece for CNN, Opinion columnist LZ Granderson lets us know that we’re too dumb.

The piece comes on the heels of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development releasing its findings from the Survey of Adult Skills.

The survey “directly measures proficiency in several information processing skills, namely literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology rich environments”

The U.S. ranked 16th in literacy proficiency.

Granderson is nervous for our country — as he should be. But there’s more at play than simply educating the youth of the nation in a more effective manner.

Within the column, Granderson brings up interviewing tactics that late-night talk shows have anointed as surefire, gut-busting gold: street interviews.

Jimmy Kimmel’s most recent gimmick went to the streets asking people for their thoughts on Obamacare vs. The Affordable Care Act. Spoiler alert: they’re the same thing. But that didn’t stop people from answering the question with gusto.

In that particular instance, though, the clip ends with a woman admitting they made her look dumb. She takes responsibility and makes no excuses. Pretty valiant, actually.

So it’s not all because we’re flat-out dumb.

Part of the reason all of the clips like the above exist is because we’re terribly ill informed.

I don’t know if you’ve picked up on this, but I’m basically the leader of “The Newsroom” cult.  However accurate the show is, the team takes a stand to produce high-quality news that informs the voting people.

Stories classified as “tragedy porn” are out.

It’s highly idealistic, but we need that news. The show’s creator, Aaron Sorkin, might actually have some meat to his agenda. We’re spoon-fed worthless information.

As I’m writing this, the number one trending topic on CNN.com is who is going to play Christian Grey in the film adaptation of “Fifty Shades of Grey” now that Charlie Hunnam has dropped out.

Number one topic. CNN.com. I don’t even need to say anything snotty about that.

I love Miley Cyrus, probably a strange amount, but that doesn’t mean she needs to be on the Huffington Post front page every single day.

In school if we didn’t understand something, we’d blame the teacher.

He/she didn’t spend enough time on the subject, or maybe he/she presented the topic in a way that was unappealing to you.

We need to do that in this scenario. And we’ll still need to do our homework, but it’s much easier to accomplish that when the proper resources are available.

Granderson says we should be afraid of the stupid people using their all-American right to vote.

And yes, we should be.

So let’s stop literally dicking around and do something about it.

­— sjostrow@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Sam Ostrowski on Twitter @ostrowski_s_j.