Newsies

We are what we read .. - Screenshot by blogSpotter

by blogSpotter
Before diving into today’s topic, I’d like to mention my day’s activity. I visited the George W. Bush Library at SMU. The parking was overflow and that should have clued me in... the line for exhibits was a mile long, wrapping all the way around the main lobby. The facility is beautiful; the “lantern” section has a 90 foot ceiling with an LED mural. You can look at the public area and the museum shop without paying admission. I’ll come back on a less crowded day. To my liberal brethren, I’d like to say this museum can be fascinating to those of any political bent. In fact, if you dislike Number 43, you might find the exhibits interesting from the standpoint of how the exhibitors did spin and damage control.

Everyone’s a Newsy

When I was 7, I required adult supervision. Left to my own devices food-wise, I would’ve had M&M’s, fudge brownies, BBQ potato chips and ice cream for dinner. I would’ve considered the chips my veggie for the day. What! ... you (the presumed adult) say that diet lacks balance. There are no vegetables, no fiber. There’s nothing redeeming about it.

Now let’s flash forward to 2013. I live alone, but time has given me insight into my dietary needs. I get spinach, asparagus and vitamins daily. My adult sensibilities have even given me an affinity for these things. In an oddly similar way, we all need to be sustained with an “information” diet. We get our daily news mostly from TV and the Internet. A few of us dinosaurs still read Time and the Dallas Morning News. A friend my age laughs derisively at “dead tree” media. “Time’s stories are a week stale, the day it comes to your mailbox”, he says. Likewise, DMN is rehashing the CNN headlines you already saw last night on your iPad.

I won’t argue his points, but I have a couple of ideas to add..

1) I read the paper for Op Ed and essays as much as anything. An informed opinion about reasonably current events doesn’t grow stale like day old bread.

2) I read “mainstream” venues to get the other guy’s opinion even if I don’t love him or her. I’ve read many articles by Mark Davis, Pat Buchanan, George Will and even Ann Coulter. The Morning News offers guest opinions from opposing sides. I like to know what the “enemy camp” is thinking -- what arguments do I need to counter.

3) I read the dead tree media because my eyes will by happenstance land on ideas, issues and events I might otherwise tune out. I’m made aware of the Dallas City Council positions and Mayor Rawling’s GrowSouth initiative. Not everything is the substance of Firing Line but it’s worth knowing nonetheless.

My friend is conservative -- he reads web sites with names like “National Review” and “American Patriot”. He devours FOXNews.com as well as FOX news on TV. Liberals have their equivalent sites -- Huffington Post and Daily Kos. What I see happening is a segregating, silo effect. You and I may be next door neighbors and yet have such differing grips on reality. Our take on everything is slanted and possibly backwards. Then because maybe we both canceled the daily paper, we’re not even aware of a local election or fund drive.

Pandemonium

One web site that I like has a conservative label but it serves up liberal Op Eds as well: RealClearPolitics.com. You’ll find the offerings of Ann Coulter right next to Maureen Dowd. Liberal economist Paul Krugman will follow right after NeoCon Bill Kristol. It’s pandemonium in a way, but a good pandemonium.

What I’d like the reader to carry away is that news should annoy you -- when you see what the other guy thinks. It might also fill you with concern, obligation and sometimes remorse. There is a yin and yang to knowledge and knowing. If all you eat is M&M’s you’ll become a fat, complacent diabetic porker. Better to take in the roughage and variety that makes us mindful, sentient, sometimes disturbed but always hoping to have a better world. Sometimes the greatest insights come from the storm clouds of reasoned debate -- and we benefit when lightning strikes.

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