G. K. Chesterton once commented on his experience of returning home after a trip to another country. He suddenly saw familiar things from a different perspective and with renewed appreciation for good things. Such experiences still happen today, almost a century after Chesterton’s. But I also had another, quite different experience when returning from such a trip.
As a person addicted to the news, I expected to find many TV stories had unfolded during my absence, including the ones titled “BREAKING NEWS.” Instead, however, I found virtually nothing new. It was as if time had stood perfectly still. I was reminded of the time, many years ago, when soap opera fans could miss weeks or even months of their favorite series only to find the plot exactly as they had left it.
My experience, of course, involved more serious material than soap operas, matters such as Trump’s battle to stay on the ballot; police here, there, and almost everywhere trying unsuccessfully to defeat rising crime; Mayorkas assuring us that the border is under control; and Biden bragging about mythical economic gains, international relations, and reductions in gasoline prices. The stories were pretty much the same as before. “Breaking” news was anything but.
What has happened to the news? The 24-hour broadcast schedule happened. It is not a new development but has been around for decades. We have just grown so accustomed to it that we do not question it and so become its victims.
In the early days of TV broadcasting, the schedule was far shorter. But as it expanded over time, there were more time slots to fill. That meant an increase in news and commentary programs, each with its own host. Understandably, every host wants to offer his/her commentary on important events of the day, and since the number of such events is limited, there is a great deal of repetition in their programs. In other words, viewers who watch the seven, eight, and nine o’clock shows encounter essentially the same stories three times. Each host’s guests may be different, and their viewpoints may differ, so the repetition may only be partial, but it is nevertheless substantial. As if this were not enough sameness of content, the late-night and early morning shows play clips of what was previously broadcast.
The steady repetition of information hour after hour harms all who receive it. To begin with, hearing any report five or ten times makes it seem five or ten times more significant than it actually is, and thus distorts our sense of reality. If the report is negative as well, it can also make us feel anxious, fearful, and depressed. And negative news tends to be more prevalent today than positive. As the time-honored journalistic saying goes, “If it bleeds, it leads.” The reason is simple. Mayhem increases viewers and listeners, which attracts advertisers, whose revenue encourages news agencies to both increase their negative reporting and devote more program space to commercials.
Commercials can be as short as ten seconds but the average length is 30 seconds, and every one causes the viewers to shift their attention. The number of commercials per hour in cable news ranges from 11.1 to 15.1. Daily TV viewing in the latest available data (2020) was 1 hour for teenagers, 2.4 hours for 35-49 year olds, 5 hours for 50-64 year olds, and approximately 6.5 hours for 65+ year olds. Taken together the average viewing for those groups was 4.3 hours. Therefore, on a typical viewing day, American TV viewers were forced to shift their attention between 48 and 65 times. Every one of those shifts contributed to a shortened attention span, which in turn lessened the quality of our reasoning and understanding, particularly of difficult matters.
So far, we have noted harm done by repetition of information in general and negative information in particular. In addition, there is the harm done by dishonest information, which can lead us to be suspicious of, and angry toward, the individuals and/or groups it maligns. These states of mind make it difficult to think clearly and probingly about people and issues, and therefore make it easier for dishonest people to manipulate our thinking.
The question that examination of my travel experience raised for me was what can I do to escape the negative influences the media have on me? The answer is surely not to stop watching/listening to the news because that will leave me uninformed. The best I can do is reduce the negative influences and modify their impact on me. The following steps seem helpful for me and perhaps will be so for my readers.
1) Compare the networks I currently watch with one another and eliminate those I find less than completely honest.
2) Determine how much repetition of news and commentary there is in the shows I watch, and reduce my viewing accordingly, for example by viewing two instead of four shows each night or one instead of two.
3) Instead of watching shows when they are run, tape them. Then watch the parts of each show I wish, while fast-forwarding through repetitive parts and commercials.
Using one or more of these approaches will not only reduce depression and manipulation by others—it will also provide time for pondering the events of the day for ourselves and discerning their meaning, as well as for reading and interacting more positively with family and friends.
Copyright © 2024 by Vincent Ryan Ruggiero. All rights reserved.
