Media is our prompt.
My undergraduate degree is in journalism, and at one point I actually worked as a journalist. Those were the days! My first internship was at the ABC affiliate in Topeka, Kansas which had the only computerized news room in the area. Can you image? Photographers carried around big bulky video cameras, and we spent hours in editing bays trying to wrangle this now obsolete technology. It was so old school.
In Alaska, the nightly news was flown by plane to the far north and broadcast a day later. That is how connected we were back then.
The media’s role in America was to shine a light in the corners of darkness, to educate and inform, to be the fourth branch of the government. Journalists were educated in the first amendment. What’s that? It is this.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Those ideas seem so quaint now.
We thought we were moving quickly. Cable expanded our world beyond four networks which felt like absolute mayhem. MTV and public access television—things were falling apart.
CNN was the first 24 hour news station. I watched the Challenger break apart and the first war with Iraq for days on end. Bernard Shaw was the man.
Now, any one can broadcast their opinion and call it news. All the lines have blurred. Opinion masquerades as fact. Two sides are always shown even when one side might be entirely composed of fairy dust. Elections are thrown on social media, and if one party runs two branches of the government—good luck sorting that out.
What does this all mean? I don’t know. I really don’t know.
But I am stitching my way towards discovery.
Lots to think about. I have not come up with anything for this topic yet. Eeek!
I am sure you will come up with something fabulous! I am not sure that my current idea is going to work. I think that because it is so different from my regular work, I am just aprehensive. The reveal is always so good!
Maria… this is a bt of an eye-opener and brings us back to where we started this journey with obsession in watching the world at war with itself over so many issues. Thank you for all you have done over the years to support the value of news, sharing your thoughts and support for our understanding of the importance of staying alert and abreast of happenings around us. The art world is playing a large role in this shared growth and understanding.
Bethany- I feel as if I am doing nothing! It is a strange thing the world we are in. I suppose each and everyone of us who is trying to be thoughtful, who is trying to be aware of reality and put positive energy out into the world is doing something. It just feels so small right now. I hope you are staying safe, healthy, and creative!
look forward to your make Maria 🙂 and your statement “Now, any one can broadcast their opinion and call it news.” is so so true and so so sad !! in Australia (as I’m sure in other parts of the world) we have “news” programs that are actually just editorials and opinions of the day’s news by the presenters that are only causing more division and unrest and in the year of Covid we really don’t need anymore manufactured stress !!
I finally decided that I would only listen to PBS Newshour. I think it is the most rational of the news programming we have in the states, still I can see the bias. Which makes me think, is it baised if it really is the truth? When we have alternative facts that means we have alternative realities and when you have an uneducated populous that can be very troubling. Civics is an elective in our schools now! It is so hard. We must simply live our lives as if they matter. As if each action is contributing, hopefully, to a greater good. Thank you Leanne for stopping by and commenting.