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Avoiding the Stupidity of Trusting the Media
Can we trust any information soruce?
George Pillari
February 12, 2024
In a world of 500 channels on television and an endless number of websites spewing data and opinions, where can we start this analysis? Let’s start with sports. As a society, we seem to have an insatiable appetite for sports and sports news. Since its debut in 1979, ESPN has become the dominant source of sports information and, more than forty years later, it is everywhere—on your computer, phone, television, airplane seat, etc. But why is ESPN (and its competitors) so popular? A simple answer: it is reliable.
Steve Smith of ESPN
Sports information, with few exceptions, is based on hard facts: batting averages, shooting percentages, tackles made, goals scored, and on the list goes. There is no debate about the facts; the stats are the stats, and they are verifiable and rarely in dispute.
There is no interpretation or analysis involved. Either you won or you lost, you made the shot or you didn’t. ESPN and others pile on loads of opinions and analyses, but this is the dessert to the meat and potatoes dinner of the hard data.
Contrast sports information in the media with our generals reporting on how we are doing against enemies in other countries, and the comparison is a joke. We can only rely on the expert’s opinion or homemade scorecard for how things are going in a war zone.
“U.S. troops drove back the enemy and took possession of a strategic mountain pass in Afghanistan last night.”
General Petraeus
I don’t know about you, but I don’t see a frame of reference here. Nobody is telling us there are twelve key mountain passes and if we control all of them, we choke off the enemy supply lines. Even knowing that, does it really help us decide if we are winning or losing? Basketball scores are up on the screen and change with every basket, so it’s pretty easy to tell how things are going.
And what about outright fabrications by people like James Frey? We first must realize that there is no professional licensing test to become a journalist or an author. Anybody can do it (present company included). Frey is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with the media and how right Boorstin was about celebrities replacing heroes in today’s world. Hey, if you get a lot of “likes” or page views, it must be awesome, and it must be true. Trouble is that these fabrications get repeated over and over as they are picked up by other media outlets and rebroadcast to still more people.
After a short incubation, the fabrications become the truths that people repeat to each other. Stupid.
Same for our respected military officers who have become shills for the Pentagon.
To me, it’s an embarrassment that men and women who have sacrificed so much and defended our country are peddling marketing pitches for a few extra dollars. Such individuals should be beyond reproach.
How about this: let’s fix the military pension system so as to avoid these temptations
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