I’ve recently developed a new habit. Every single time I go on social media and see a political post, anything that mentions the names Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, or watch television and see a political piece for the second time, I roll my eyes and close the application.
Many of the people I talk to do this as well. It’s not because I don’t think the issues are important. I just wonder how many stories I can read about how the Democrats or Republicans are obstructionists who want to ruin the fate of the this country.
So, instead, I skip over them and check the news only once a day. Honestly, I love it.
We live in a 24-hour news cycle bubble. For those of us who don’t have cable, we have the internet. If I can go more than 15 minutes without hearing something news-related, it’s a miracle. While being connected has its perks, the constant news cycle doesn’t bring constant value.
If you ever look on CNN, MSNBC or really any news network, you’ll see five stories that get repeated over the course of two to three hours.
There isn’t enough news for 24 hours, so the stories that do get played get over done so much. During the 2011 Casey Anthony trial, more and more insignificant news about her was released by the hour, but most of the content released seemed to be about her life rather than the case.
That isn’t news. That’s entertainment.
David Folkenflik, who is NPR’s media correspondent, detailed what the largest problem with these news networks is. When it becomes a rating game on who has the best coverage, networks become forced to keep their watchers entertained.
Folkenflik said “there’s a lot of things that we would classify as kind of pulpy, quasi-tabloid, quasi-celebrity news” when we’re constrained to this constant stream of vapid news.
That explains the panel shows where everyone just argues, it explains why there are so many talk shows that feel eerily similar, and it explains the overuse of interviews with official analysts.
It’s not just cable news networks. Look at any large publication’s front page – whether it’s The New York Times, the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal. There are the news pieces followed by the editorials on whether those decisions are good one, and then personal interviews. At this point we are beating a dead horse, and it works because it’s entertainment.
Paying attention to the news has its merits. We should know what’s going on, and we should understand how that affects us in the future.
However, constantly viewing the same material over and over again does not teach us anything new. It just makes us want to isolate ourselves more.
npatwari@umail.iu.edu
