2.27 Media - The Curious Case of the Newspaper Box

Bestest Friend and I are in the middle of a blog project. Each day of the month we will post a picture on a pre-determined theme and write a little something about it. The theme for the twenty-seventh day of each month is "Media."
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Earlier this week I was listening to a podcast in which the panelists decried "the youth" for not even knowing that cut and paste was a thing you physically had to do when creating a newspaper layout in the days before word processors and computers and while I rolled my eyes at the silliness of the conversation (this is your main problem with "kids today?!), I became a tiny bit nostalgic about the days of my own youth when a newspaper was delivered to my house each day and there were piles of newspapers everywhere in our house. And then I snapped out of the nostalgia because there were piles of newspapers everywhere.

I don't actually worry about the fact that physical newspapers are not as ubiquitous as they once were, but I do worry about the carelessness with which news is now released to the public.  People die in accidents and their names are found via blogs and social media before their families are told. Speculation runs rampant that a suspected terrorist is that one guy and Twitter runs wild with rumor for hours before it becomes known that he's completely innocent.  In order to get the story to the website fast (or first!), facts aren't checked and followups are few.

The 24-hour news cycle forces news organizations to create controversy where none exists. It creates a supposed political polarization in this country pitting neighbor against neighbor when actual differences in priorities and concerns are minute. It creates a feel of helplessness in the minds of every citizen who turns on the television or radio to be bombarded with important stories of huge importance that seem so overwhelming that whatever political efficacy he or she had goes out the window as they change the channel so they can listen to the next Carrie Underwood hit and forget about the sturm and drang of the news cycle.

So as I walked by these newspaper boxes today, I said a silent eulogy to a time of carefully researched news programs and an informed populace that thought members of Congress did more than campaign for reelection and had faith it its leaders to make right and moral decisions. 

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To see what Bestest Friend wrote about the theme of the day, check out her blog, Too Legit to Quit.