Media and Critical Thinking

People have a tendency to promote their own agenda. This is not necessarily a good or bad thing. This is in fact human nature, or the inner workings of our, for no better term EGO.

Now I will get on our social responsibility a little bit. This whole “Fake News” name calling that has been happening recently Is true to some degree. I am not especially sure that this is a conspiracy exactly. There are many facts that point to it though, as in almost all the major media organizations are owned by a few persons (either corporate entities or individuals). These people are in part at blame. If people were led into a distinct way of thinking shame on these organizations but also shame on us for being led. We cannot take anything in the public at face value. There are unethical people in the world that would knowingly twist facts to get your money or support for something that if you knew the real truth too you would be appalled at. There are also very ignorant people that believe everything they see to the best of their ability, and sometimes people that do not understand much of science try to interpret a scientific article for a story.

I see facts taken out of context every day. There was a recent story where scientific data was taken out of context and some assumptions made. The story was about people killing 70% of wildlife since 1970, and apart from personal opinion on this matter, there was no definitive proof of this. There was the next day an article that criticized the author for not doing their due diligence and misinterpreting the original scientific article and adding their opinion to it. It did not say they were wrong and it was indeed possible we are to blame for the actual population decrease of wildlife, but there was no definitive proof in this article to this claim.

We as a society have stopped researching facts and have quite literally begun begging these media companies for their opinions and not facts. We want a talking head that says hey I think this is right or you should do this. Now I am not saying don’t like someone else’s opinion or look for other perspectives on situations. If we as a society stop fact checking and do not have any critical thinking happening, we are begging for “Fake News” to happen.

It is easy to get caught up in emotional turmoil that is bombarding you in the media. There are many ways our brains perk up to negative attention, it was at one point a survival mechanism. There are people that have studied our psychology that are at the top of these media corporate structures that understand if we show an injustice (even if the skewing happens to increase views/likes) more people will watch it and increase their profits. There are phycological experts hired for an increasing large percentage of games made that literally addict people to the game. The large social media organizations do exactly the same thing to keep more people using their systems.

Please do some fact checking when these people in the public view claim something. If we hold these people to higher standards, they will have to give us higher standards or go out of business. The “News Media” should be an impartial conduit for Facts. Do not let them get away with only giving you opinions on misunderstood ideas from a friend or colleague that misunderstood an article.

There was a video that Mathew McConaughey did that was very well done a few years ago. He used (possibly paraphrased) a quote from Anna Lappe “Every time you spend money, you’re casting a vote for the kind of world you want.” That sums up our society quite well. I encourage you to fact check everything you hear and vote for a better world with what you spend your money on.