We have the most sophisticated communications systems, which means that the news we get is more or less instantaneous. Ordinary people have become very savvy about using technology to inform the world about what is going on in their country or neighbourhood. There is nowhere for anyone to hide now.
In many cases that is excellent news. Wrongdoing can be broadcast, perpetrators can be brought to justice. The forces of good can be mobilised against the forces of evil.
But I do have my doubts too. The media / press can also whip up a climate of fear or frenzy. They can make the news they report into a self fulfilling prophesy. Our current global financial woes & specifically the Eurozone crisis is a case in point. Every possibility is laid bare under the microscope, dire predictions of collapse can all to easily become reality. If we have a run on the Spanish banks it will be because that possibility has been talked up & people are scared to leave their money in the bank.
There is an argument for not examining the possibilities too closely. Perhaps news should be just that - events that have actually happened, rather than speculation about what might, just, happen. After all for every opinion & speculation expressed there is always another "expert" with an opposing view.
We are talking ourselves into a "black hole" of catastrophe. There may not be a way out.
You have to remember that the press is in the business of selling papers. They do that with dubious statistics, selective reporting, exaggeration and downright lying.
ReplyDelete'Reporting facts' doesn't come into it!
Morning Steve,
DeleteYou might say that I couldn't possibly comment!So young & yet so cynical.