We were in St. Louis for a marching band competition over the weekend. One thing I always try to do when I'm in a different place is to catch a local newscast. I ended up watching KDSK, the NBC affiliate, and they obviously use the same production company as KARE does here. The intro music is essentially the same, up to having the same music that starts the sports portion of the broadcast.
I sensed a weariness in the broadcast, especially in the station's coverage of the ongoing protests over the acquittal of Jason Stockley, a police officer who killed a black man in 2011 following a high-speed chase. For reasons that seem bizarre to me, Stockley had been charged with first-degree murder, which doesn't make any sense given the context of the event. Over the weekend, the protesters apparently decided to go to the St. Louis Galleria Mall, but the coverage, which you can see here, is perfunctory and it seems like everyone is kinda bored.
I've been feeling the same way for a while now. The news continues to follow a predictable pattern. There's no interest in listening to each other, because political positions are completely polarized. We won't listen to each other, because we've heard it all before.
It won't end well.
4 comments:
We won't listen because we perceive the opposing position to be beyond the pale. Sometimes this is true, or rather, it is true for some people on the opposing side. But the existence of Richard Spencer doesn't make M*tch B*rg a white supremacist. And the existence of BLM doesn't make most of my clergy colleagues sympathetic to cop killing. But the system of communication highlights extreme views and encourages people to support their own side in defense of the extremes of the other.
This has a great deal to do with social media, of course. But I don't think this would be such a problem if the media hadn't set up a poisonous dynamic years ago and continued to double down on it for perceived ideological interest. I've resisted saying it out loud, but journalism/journalists richly deserves to suffer consequences for their outsized role in this national meltdown. I have far more sympathy for a BLM protester or college age "anti-fascist" than I do the editorial board of the NYT or Jeff Bezos. The former are tools. The latter are actively wielding power to destroy a culture. Justice would demand more than I feel comfortable typing.
There are still nightly news shows? Huh.
Maybe I'm just showing my Pollyanna side, but part of me thinks that the field is wide open for someone making a moral case on any number of topics. Kinda along the lines of "where sin abounds, there abounds grace all the more."
I have far more sympathy for a BLM protester or college age "anti-fascist" than I do the editorial board of the NYT or Jeff Bezos. The former are tools. The latter are actively wielding power to destroy a culture. Justice would demand more than I feel comfortable typing.
Yes.
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