My Theory of Reconciliation

Here's the rub: maybe it's a better idea not to view the Media as a relayer of events. Or to put it another way, let's limit them to editorials.

Any event or fact reported by the Media is going to have some kind of spin on it, whether intentional or unintentional. So what if we consciously made an effort to see everything they reported as an opinion? Every war statistic from Iraq, everything that Osama Bin Laden says, everything Cindy Sheehan does, every fact about global warming we start to consciously tell ourselves "every reporter an editor and every article an editorial."

i don't think it's that revolutionary or far-fetched.

It's long been known that eye-witnesses to crimes are terrible evidence. There is simply too much that can happen to their stories; again, either intentionally or otherwise. And eye-witnesses are usually unbiased as they witness events, because most of the time they don't know what's happening or is about to happen.

In ugly contrast, reporters do know what's happening or is about to happen, and it's quite likely they already have an opinion on it. This significantly shades their interpretation and their reporting, to such an extent that i would say it's worth sticking it in the Opinion section of the paper. In statistics, a voluntary response sample is the absolute worst method of finding people's opinions. Why? Because only those with the strongest opinions will take part. Reporters are a lot like voluntary response samples; they have very strong opinions about world news.

I was about to say, "and this makes them the very worst people to report it," but i think that would have destroyed my whole theory. In fact, it's at the very core of what i'm saying-- let's stop expecting the Media to be objective. Let's stop viewing them as simple purveyors of truth.

Do they want to be biased? Fine! Do they want to put a spin on what they see? Ok by me! What i want instead is for myself and anyone who could possibly watch the news to stop accepting their word as bona fide Gospel Truth. Let's stop even thinking that they want to tell us things that are true. Let's instead listen to the news as we would an acquaintance in a coffee shop; he or she is sharing their innermost philosophical views, and it does us good to listen.

It doesn't do us good to start imbibing every Nietzsche and Hegel philosopy that comes our way.

For a brief addendum, to those of you who are wondering (and if you aren't you can skip this part), i am not advocating language deconstruction theory. My theory as it stands applies to news and news only; news as propagated by the Media. This is not a literary theory by any means.