Tag Archives: News

Intentionally disconnected

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Is it just me that has been intentionally disconnecting from the news and even social media around the war in the Middle East?

I truly understand my privilege in saying this, since I don’t have loved ones in jeopardy. And understand the desire of some people to know what’s going on because there are global ramifications. Yet I find myself unable to concern myself with the political posturing, the doublespeak, the justifications, and the outrage. I feel like I don’t have the mental capacity to either partially engage and feel insignificantly informed or to delve in and be fully informed… and ultimately powerless to do more than fill my brain with visions of destruction and violence.

Even though I usually choose to ignore the negativity of news, I still tend to keep myself updated on global issues and major news stories, but I’m struggling to engage right now. I find it too disheartening.

It makes me question the humanity of humans. That as a species we can construct such diametrically opposed ideologies; that we can live in societies that value greed over the welfare of the community; that we can choose leaders who do not care for the people that elected them into ‘service’… these are things I don’t understand. Or rather, things I don’t want to believe that humans could value more than peace, love, and kindness.

And so for now I lack the capacity to engage. It seems like a futile activity that will anger and upset me, with no gain. It is rare for me to actively choose to be uninformed, but right now is one of those times.

Share less tragedy

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We don’t have to feign naivety and pretend something horrible didn’t happen. Sad things happen in the world and we need to understand this. What we don’t need is a constant flow of news and a detailed account of the event pushed on to us, and more importantly pushed onto kids.

This was some professional advice shared with me 14 years ago, after a tragic suicide in our community that was followed shortly after by a school shouting in the US.

  • Refrain from sharing images or video of the incident.
  • If discussions do take place within the classroom, we recommend they be limited to a brief sharing of facts.
  • There will understandably be some anxiety around this incident and staff and students may have some level of emotional impact from the news.
  • Please watch for any changes in behaviour, particularly among vulnerable students, and refer appropriately to your school counsellor as needed.

Children don’t need to see report after report about a tragic incident. It doesn’t have to be the topic of a current events discussion. And nothing needs to be shared about a perpetrator of a horrific crime. Not even the perpetrator’s name. Not at school, not at home.

I could go on, but I’ve share a lot on this already, many years ago:

‘Care or Fear’

Excerpt: We often get results based on the pictures we fill our young impressionable  students’ heads with. Tomorrow, I fear that well-intentioned teachers could stir up thoughts of fear for personal safety in young minds, as concerns about Newtown are discussed. As I said, ‘I’m willing to bet that hundreds of thousands of students that might have felt safe in their school, and would not have questioned their own safety, will now think of that question (Am I safe?) and perhaps be more frightened than if that question did not get discussed.’

And then I followed up with ‘A new tragedy of the commons’

Excerpt: The fact is that we know, both through research and from historical evidence, that glorified stories perpetuate the very sadness we are appalled by. But that doesn’t stop a major national magazine, MACLEAN’S, from glorifying a killer on their front cover page. I’ve shared the cover below, but took some creative liberties with a red pen to prevent this very post from doing what I wish others wouldn’t.

When I see a cover page like this, I’m left wondering what we truly value in our society?

It comes down to this: We need to care for those who are concerned, we don’t need to amplify concern. The less we share tragic stories as a community, the more care we are showing for that community.

Tragedy Tourism

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I don’t know how widespread the use of this phrase is, but I heard it and to me it is exactly why I struggle to pay attention to the news. The phrase is ‘tragedy tourism’ and it refers to the constant onslaught of tragedy we ‘visit’ viewing current events in the news. The topics vary and change but message is the same:

Share a tragic event, share the outrage, sadness, and horror, briefly examine the details, discuss them, highlight the anger or controversy, and then move on… find a new tragedy and repeat. You don’t get to live too long with any one tragedy, you merely visit and move on.

Your attention can’t stay on any one thing, because the next tragedy is thrust upon you to provoke further outrage, to keep you distracted, triggered. And a mind that is consumed with tragedy is a controlled and manipulated mind. It’s a mind that is angry and distracted from rational thought, it’s a mind that easily forgets the last reason to be outraged because the new reason, the next distraction, fill your consciousness with yet another and another tragedy.

No time for clarity of thought, no time to examine the issues and nuances of the last tragedy you visited, you just move on to the next tragedy because that’s where the news cycle is now. You visit each new tragedy like you are on a vacation bus tour. In the same way that a bus stops to show you a touristy landmark just long enough to learn a few highlights and minor details, and take a picture, the news peppers you with the lowlights, the sadness of the tragedy before putting you back on the metaphorical bus to be dropped off at the next tragedy.

Tragedy tourism keeps you hopping from one tragedy to the next, filling you with new reasons to be angry and upset, but not leaving you long enough on any one tragedy to allow you to feel immersed. The stay at each tragic event too short to care enough to truly understand the tragedy or to meaningfully interact or think critically about it before moving on to the next one.

An angry mind doesn’t think critically. A divided attention doesn’t promote activism or action. A distracted population doesn’t do anything to upset the status quo… and the news pumps out a new tragedy for us to visit.

Drinking poison

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I just read this and it kinda hit hard:

‘Never again should anyone be amazed at how Jim Jones got his followers to drink poison.’

I’m not a fan of naming killers on my blog, I think they get too much attention by name, and that glorification permits others to seek the attention. But we are living through an era where millions of people are polarized, and I’d say misguided. They blindly follow a leader whom can do no wrong in their eyes. And this is utterly and completely dividing a once powerful nation.

Worse yet, the media passively permits it. It allows blatant lies to be shared as news. I can’t decide if it’s simply complacency or if it is equally the fault of ignorance. Complacency from some for sure, from the ones that willfully spew the propaganda and rhetoric. Ignorance perhaps from others wherein there is a belief that the viewer sees the lie, and can discern truth from lies themselves… but many can not.

So the painful truth is that the poison is fed to the masses, and too many are drinking it.

Echoes getting louder

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The idea of being in an echo chamber suggests that you are surrounded by people, media, and information sources that are constantly reinforcing your beliefs… without exposing you to opposing viewpoints unless arguing convincingly against those viewpoints.

I’ve discussed, a number of times, my concerns that we are living more and more in dichotomies, where sides or factions are so diametrically opposed, no one can hold a stance in the middle without being considered to be from the opposing viewpoints. You either live in an echo chamber or you live in an opposing echo chamber. Because the voices in the middle are ‘othered’ and so not part of any stance or view that can be snuck into an echo chamber. The voices of the middle don’t get to echo. And so the echo chamber narrows, keeping exposure to outside views securely away.

The echoes are getting louder and it’s getting easier to listen to them and nothing else… which ultimately leads to us spewing the same echoes we hear. So it’s up to us to seek diverse stances and viewpoints. It’s up to us to actively extend our searches for reliable information. And it’s up to us to question the reliability of our sources. It’s either that or voluntarily be just another voice echoed in a narrow echo chamber that seems to be getting further polarized and biased every day.

A house of cards

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It’s amazing just how high you can build a house of cards. But the challenge is that no one stops building, it’s too enticing to keep going. And so eventually the cards collapse.

I think the cards are about to fall. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking. Maybe it’s just the top layer that will fall and then it will be rebuilt. But I have a hunch that it’s the base that is crumbling. And you can’t build a house of cards without a strong base.

And finally, if you even remotely think I’m talking about a deck of playing cards, you are mistaken.

Lost in sensationalism

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We’ve lost our plot as a species. We’ve lost our way. I haven’t been a fan of the news for a while now, but I still see enough of it to be disappointed and underwhelmed.

“If it bleeds, it leads.”

Give us the dirt, highlight the disaster, sensationalize everything. If it’s not a big enough story, find a more controversial angle. And sadly, if that’s not enough, exaggerate. Or worse yet, perpetuate a blatant lie… which is somehow ok by news standards because then they are still reporting (fact-checking can come later). This is awful because when you highlight a lie over and over it becomes more believable. It becomes the story. The apology or correction won’t get the same attention.

And we eat it up. We share before we fact check. We trust one-sided narratives, especially when they sensationalize in our favour. Meanwhile we are equally quick to discredit the ‘other side’ as fake news.

We are lost in sensationalism. And we can’t seem to find our way out. Polarizing points are thrown at us. Anger, hate, disgust, and disasterare worth our attention. Nothing else matters, nothing else makes the headlines, gets retweeted, or reshared, or discussed on podcasts and news stations.

And now AI is producing such realistic video content that it’s almost impossible to know if what you are watching is real. This is like putting sensationalism on steroids. Pump up the fake news, create doubt and division. Promote anger and disgust. Get those clicks, those likes, those reposts, and you will be financially rewarded. So what if you also leave everyone upset, confused, and lost.

Propaganda hyperbole

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I remember visiting Dandong, China and going to a museum about the Korean war. Our tour guide translated the name of the museum for us: “The Museum to Commemorate the War Against American Aggression”. To the Chinese, the loss of that war meant the US having access to North Korea, dangerously close to Chinese land and major ports.

In broken English there were translated signs describing pictures of American prisoners of war holding up peace signs, with a description that even the Americans knew the war was wrong. This was an excellent display of blatant propaganda. But it also made me think about what I knew about that war, and I realized my view would have been filled with American propaganda.

Our perspectives truly vary depending on where we live, and the media and information we are privy to. With that, I have to say that the US propaganda machine is currently spewing hyperbole as if it should be taken seriously.

This is US Vice President JD Vance sharing the American Administration perspective on Greenland, “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland.”

And here is a perspective from outside the US: On TikTok, or saved here.

I’ve been avoiding news more than consuming it recently, but I can predict what Fox News versus MSNBC would have said about JD Vance’s Greenland speech. I just wish both broadcasts would spend a bit less time on myopic hyperbole about how they see their political leadership, and maybe, just maybe share some perspectives from other parts of the world.

Our global economy does not benefit from the rest of the (free) world perceiving the US as weak, or threatening, or laughable. No one is buying the current messaging, no one is blindly accepting the propaganda, no country is going to be bullied into thinking the US should have sovereignty over them.

The US either has to drop the propagandized dogma, or align it with their allies. Their current messaging isn’t just off brand, and offensive, it’s laughably embarrassing.

Small reset

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I had a bout of food poisoning that put me out of commission for a good day and a half. While I am not yet 100%, I can say that other than my tummy feeling a bit off, I am not feeling any other effects. I wrote yesterday that I was in recovery mode, I realize that I was also in a bit of a reset.

I was getting swallowed up in news about the Canadian election and the goings on of US politics as well. I was swept up in the news and for me that’s never good. In the last 48 hours I just didn’t have the mental capacity to care, and so I haven’t been paying attention.

Refreshing.

I need to remember to take these small breaks, small resets, where I let the crazy news headlines of the day slip by without putting mental energy into them. I don’t need to be dismissive, just less sensitized to things beyond my control. Because when I’m paying attention, I get deep in because even my social media algorithms get pulled towards news and so even my mental breaks end up being more of the same information.

Reset completed, I’m going to try to stay away a little longer… there will be enough craziness happening next week that I can let this week’s news go for a little while longer.

Is this real?

There is a commonality between hearing the question, “Is this spam?” regarding an email, and hearing the question, “Is this real” regarding a video that might be staged, enhanced with AI, or even intentionally spreading lies.

In an age of unlimited information a new kind of skepticism is needed. What’s the source? Does the source have a slant, a bias, or an agenda? Is this actually from the source it claims? (Just yesterday a fake article that was sent to me had a Toronto Star subscription banner access the top of the web page, to make it seem like it was from this newspaper, but the URL was totally different.)

You would think that in a curated social media world you would be able to discern fact from fiction, real from fake. But more than ever we need to be sceptical about what we see and hear. In a world of abundant information our need to question what we believe to be true is more important than ever before. I find myself Googling quotes to see if they match other sources, and questioning headlines that seem even subtly surprising. Is this true? Is the article real? Or is it an elaborate ploy to pitch a product or simply to garnish shares and likes? Is the title of the article misleading? Do I click on that link to learn more?

Is it real? I never used to ask this question. A news headline used to mean that I was getting curated information from a reliable journalist who attempted to be impartial. Now even mainstream media seems increasingly biased and agenda driven. Knowing the source means understanding the bias more than the reliability of the information. And so my BS detector is always on… and even then I find myself being fooled until I see a product placement or a clear agenda being pushed. Media consumption now requires a good dose of scrutiny and skepticism… and with AI being more and more convincing, the level of scrutiny will need to increase.

Access to abundant information doesn’t make us smarter. Instead, the constant stream of data requires discernment and thoughtful consideration. Reliability is no long assumed, and the question, ‘is this real?’, is a necessary part of information consumption. Skepticism has become the most important part of media literacy, and curating trusted sources of good information has became a skill not easily duplicated or taught.

It’s easier to accept information than it is to question it… especially when that information fits my model of the world. And the internet (and our ‘trusted’ social media platforms) are filled with information that fits my world view. In fact, that biased world view I have is further fed to me by an algorithm that learns what I like. This only makes it harder to determine what is real and what isn’t.