While enjoying a morning coffee and a bagel in the confines of my office, as opposed to the confines of a terrace overlooking the rolling hills in Provence or outside of Naples, I was flipping through a business magazine where I came upon an opinion piece by John Risley, multimillionaire business man from right here in Nova Scotia. I read the article once through and thought perhaps I could write a post touching on it but I had to go see my doctor so I left it aside. While waiting in my doctors office, lo and behold there is the same magazine, so while patiently awaiting the Doc I read the article again and found myself with other things to say. Unsurprisingly, many things.
I found it paradoxical that this "one percenter" wanted to talk about people voting against their own interests when choosing say "Brexit" or supporting Bernie Sanders, a supposed socialist. His words are couched as advice to the powers that be, that they should "beware the fallout of increased poverty". At first read I was nodding in agreement, yes, for certain we should be doing something about eliminating poverty...but obviously Mr Risley and I are looking at it from different perspectives. The crux of his argument is that society needs to be careful of people making decisions that seem to be against their own self interest. What I think he means to say is economic self interest and what he is really saying is that why would anyone vote to support Bernie Sanders when a socialist government has never succeeded. Me thinks his self interest is at the heart of the matter here....but more importantly I think this touches on something else entirely.
He wrote an article for a business magazine, a pretty specific community that he is a leader in, a magazine for business by business people. And that's all fine and dandy, it's a free world after all, but the whole story isn't being told. There is no context, no perspective and nothing from the other side...there is an opinion and an opinion only. And because he is who he is, he will be heard and some will listen. And those listening will form opinions on the subject. One hopes that they will do so after careful examination of all sides and taking the issue out of the vacuum it may be in, but we all know that there are too many "squirrels" running around for the issue to get proper information on and when we do get information it is almost always biased in one way or another, which is fine in and of it self, but it is also often sensationalised and exaggerated for the sake of content.
What I am chirping about is less about the issue and more about how we get the information on the issue. The election cycle from hell south of the border has yet again ripped open the fragmented, disturbing and downright dangerous reporting that goes on in the world. Screaming the loudest gets you the best ratings and thus the best revenue. True journalism takes a back seat to Nielsen points and everyone is lesser for it. The fourth estate has been turned into a revenue generating arm of some media conglomerate...taking with it a good modicum of integrity, responsibility and respect.
I'm a huge fan of Aaron Sorkin and I loved his show The Newsroom. He held up a mirror to the news industry and the reflection wasn't all too flattering...in a world of 24/7 information saturation he said it simply...the industry is slave to ratings which drives revenue and everything else is paid lip service. Yes, there are pockets of integrity but it would seem that the pool is getting smaller and the chasm between integrity and self serving rhetoric is growing too wide. For a democracy to succeed the electorate needs to be well informed with facts and context. Instead of sombre reflection on issues we get presidential debates being promoted like the Thrilla in Manilla and opponents that dodge questions and out and out lie...and the media has allowed it. They allowed it in the vetting stage...in the early "debates" and in every moment leading up to the conventions. Once the conventions came along and people really started paying attention is when the media tried to dismally report on the goings on. Ham handed editorials and wringing of hands while bringing on to air people that were probably chosen for being both ignorant and controversial....not to mention pretty.
I don't have a problem with a news organization commenting within the context of their ideals, conservative or liberal, I really don't care. I am relatively smart enough to understand that. What I do have a problem with is the almost gleeful misreporting of facts and highlighting of hyperbole as truth. Case in point, back in 2010 the conservative Obama hating right wing loud mouths reported that Barack Obama's trade trip to India would cost 200 million dollars a day and sortie 34 war ships, or ten percent of the navy, to the coast of India for the safety and comfort of the presidents ten day trip...uhhhmmmmm. The complete and total lack of investigation or even mild disbelief at such a ridiculous assertion can be explained as follows, who cares? I got to rant about it first and it makes Obama look bad and in the noise and confusion, I have gained a few more viewers. Irresponsible and dangerous precedents that make it easy to understand why the press isn't trusted.
Mr Risley is free to express his opinion, he is not a journalist reporting on an issue so there is leeway in making allowances for op-eds that advocate one way or another. If you are a member of the fourth estate, the conscience of the public trust, you have a sacred duty to ask the questions...all of them. A flash headline on the Drudge report can't be your soul source of information...you have an important job to do and regardless of the slant, you have to respect the truth and the public's right to be informed. That's both ethical and professional and we need more of that....a lot more of that.
Ciao
D
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