"If you don't read the newspaper you're uninformed. If you do read it you're misinformed." Legendary words spoken by a legendary actor speaking to the news-makers themselves. He concluded this little rant with: "Anything you practice you'll get good at... Including BS."
Image by Mike MacKenzie - source:
No matter what the motivation was for Denzel Washington to go on this little rant against the mainstream press, his words resonate in our post-truth society. When CNN was created in 1980 the first company was born with the sole objective to sell the news. And do this in a non-stop 24 hour format to boot. The channel was tailor made for continuous coverage of the Gulf War. They showed videos shot from far away showing missile traces in the night sky, maps showing the locations of the reporters and the action. Nothing spectacular really, but the mere fact that they were reporting on the war as it happened glued millions of viewers to their television screens.
CNN set the trend and many more 24 hour news-channels followed, all competing in the market of selling news with the empirical evidence that conflict is the type of news that sells. Like Denzel said, they practiced and became good at it; selling the news became selling war and other conflicts, and in the absence of conflict they diverge to selling feelgood stories that amount to a load of BS.
One particular slate of fake news, one I despise intensely, is what FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting) has dubbed "perseverance porn." The media are full of these stories and you all know them: the little heroic tales of some brave individual or group that selflessly sacrifices something to help another individual who slipped through the cracks of the economy. Or the heroes who manage to make it through life, no matter what hardship life throws at them. Or combinations thereof; "Why this inspiring teen went right back to work after car accident." This article shows a picture of a teenager with his arm in a sling and his neck in a brace working at a restaurant. The story is about how we're to be impressed by this young man's work ethics, and admire him because he also went back to work because he wanted money to give away to feed the homeless for Christmas.
And we should. We should be impressed and admire this young man. That's not the point. The point is that the media are awash with these types of stories and they are all brought as heroic stories about the humanity of the individuals involved. Why doesn't this story ask the question why this young man needs to go to work in this condition in the first place? Why is there no outrage over the fact that poor, hard working individuals like this young man are needed at all to feed the homeless? Why is it okay to let his injured body bear the weight of that responsibility?
A little kid's parents can't afford a walking aid, so we have a heroic story about Home Depot employees that built one for the poor kid. There's no decent public transportation, so we have heroic stories about persevering individuals who walk hundreds or thousands of miles per year to go to work. You can read the original 2017 article, "Media's Grim Addiction to Perseverance Porn" and their recent update "Media Just Can't Stop Presenting Horrifying Stories as 'Uplifting' Perseverance Porn," for many more examples if you need any.
Denzel Washington Blasts the Media on Dishonesty and "Fake News"
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