Tuesday, June 13, 2006

News and other oddities

Saturday night I was at dinner with my Father, Step-mother, brothers, current & future sisters-in-law and got to tell some tales about China. When asked how it was to be there when there was some crash in the Asian Markets, I was blank. There had been a crash?

With little access to the Internet, and no faith in the totalitarian governments, I had ceased to read papers and had no other access to worldly news. For all I know, France could have fallen into the sea.

All this got me thinking about how we get our information. There have always been filters on what is shared with the masses - be it self-censoring editors or governmental ones. Where do we put our trust in accuracy? 33% of Fox News viewers believe we found WMD in Iraq - does it even matter? The right is constantly offended by NPR and their news reporting, but I found it remarkable that, when reporting on ADM they were also running commercials for ADM. As no one wants to see Big Bird get cut, the right is now trying to infiltrate with right-wing commentators - to ruin what they cannot stop funding.

So, how do we decide where to get information? Blogs are often seen as the new source, but how much good are they? Who checks their facts? I could state, here on the Daily Oyster, that the sky is falling and there is no one to dispute it. A recluse might actually believe that the skies over San Francisco are falling - of course its God's punishment for the Gays.

How much of this matters? What amazed me in China is how easily I could function without knowing that there is a new treatment for HPV (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/06/13/a_vaccination_against_complacency/). Well, it does matter - but how much to my daily life. The war in Iraq, the state of the Dow - so easily ignored. I'm almost embarrassed to say I have no idea if it is above or below 10,000. I need so little information to get about my daily life.

An living in such a way has challenged my news junkie side - but I'm sure that will return as soon as I get settled back in the City.

1 comment:

Cici said...

It's like the World Cup! It's a big humoungous unavoidable deal over here and in Every Country in The World. Except for the US. Because you don't care about football, so no-one's reporting it, so you probably don't even know who won the US team's first match. (hint, it wasn't the US)I don't care about football either and I know, because it's reported EVERYWHERE.