Over the past two years more and more people have found themselves fixated on following the controversy in the fight to conquer the pandemic as well as all the politics that has engulfed this struggle. It has led to a proliferation of information from numerous sources which frequently present contradictory analyses and prognoses. The sad part about this situation is that more people want accurate information, yet the presentation of the science has become totally politicized. Despite this demand, there continues to be something fundamentally wrong with how the public accesses news and how information flows.
Newspapers were never really replaced by radio, but once television—a visual media—became widely available, it soon bypassed newspapers as the medium of choice. Beginning with the creation of CNN in 1980 and the growth and availability of multiple 24/7 cable news networks in the late 1990’s, the public gradually reduced the reliance on the printed word. With the increased availability as well as ease of use of the internet, by the early part of the 21st century social media became the new source for information for millions, regardless of the reliability and the efficacy of the sources.
As this move to social media for news continued to emerge, social scientists reiterated how the public reads news and politics, predominately to reinforce the biases. Most of the public is not really interested in “other” opinions. They generally seek to dig deeper into their own preconceived notions. In fact, studies have shown that the public largely is reading what others have distilled and posted from similar distillations that they themselves previously have received. (The very concept of “re-tweeting” only confirms this phenomenon.)
Studies have confirmed that more than 50% of adults get their information from social media and among younger people it approaches 70%. Anyone possessing any electronic piece of equipment which can access the internet is deluged with information 24/7/365. It comes from all different types of platforms and from all over the world.
Even when one is selective about what one reads the credibility and reliability of the written word, the spoken sound, or the visual picture are always open to challenge. Before the total inundation of the information age, no news source produced any serious story without insuring that their information was double or triple sourced. Readers or viewers relied on the accuracy of news.
There were always those—even political leaders--who defied the norms and exploited the system for political purposes, but they were the exceptions.
· William Randolph Hearst and his news empire were the underlying messengers for America’s entry into the Spanish-American War.
· President John Kennedy requested that The New York Times’ Washington bureau chief not preempt the Administration’s decisions during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
· The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed by Congress despite the fact that President Lyndon Johnson lied about the naval confrontation in the gulf.
· President George Bush followed the duplicitous advice of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to deceive the world concerning Iraq’s WMD’s.
Today, the pendulum has swung the other way. News outlets and news services plus all the social media platforms are inundating the public arena with so much information that concerned citizens need to work much harder to discern what is a real story underneath the deluge of fluff and distortion. This is also why President Trump’s persistent attacks against the media as “fake news” gained so much traction.
The reality is that it is getting worse. Only the elites—and hereto only some of them-- want patient, accurate reporting. Even they are exhausted trying to stay abreast what others are saying. The proliferation of sources which continue to emerge and spout dribble make efforts to be factual daunting. Accuracy in reporting competes with timing. The need to be first is fighting with the truth. Media outlets need to make money; paying for “stars” is expensive; and ratings are crucial for advertisers.
It is the combination of all these factors which the public has encountered in the midst of the pandemic. The exaggeration that Donald Trump gave to this reality exacerbated the public’s willingness to consider many of his earlier outrages. There is an obvious correlation between the former President flaunting the pandemic for ten months and the fact that his supporters booed him recently for having received a booster vaccine.
The challenge to deliver the truth and scientific evidence to the public is indeed the challenge that the Biden Administration has faced. Gaining command of the coronavirus through increased testing and reducing the anti-vaxxer population is a goal which must be achieved. Irresponsible rambling across the news media and the social network platforms reduces compliance while the virus continues to take its toll.
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