I must reveal that I had a serious lack of appreciation for the conspiracy theories spun by Glenn Beck.  It occurs to me, though, that he might have generally been on to something.

I read, years ago, Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom by Dr. Christiane Northrup.  One of many observations and recommendations she shared was to “turn off the media”.  Her reasoning, which still rings true for me, was that we have enough in our own lives to be concerned for and about.  Think about it, our families, our health, work, friends, the list goes on.  It’s just too stressful to know about so many things over which I have no control whatsoever!

My going on 9 year old daughter was told at school to not believe anything on the internet.  With its advent and the ability of anyone to post anything, this actually makes a lot of sense.  Whatever we read, we must consider the source, and often times, we would do well to do some of our own comparative research.  Well, folks, I would suggest doing the same with our news media.  And here are some reasons why…

1) In Reagan’s years, the Fairness Doctrine that governed news media was done away with in the United States, though not necessarily in other parts of the world.  BBC still presents news like they always have and similar to how the US did prior to Reagan’s era.  Anyone else recall?

2)  In order to gain a profit, news media must compete for our attention.  To do this, generally speaking, each entity chooses a market, and then proceeds to tell that market what we want to hear in ways we want to hear it in order to gain our faithful attention, and, er, market share.  In this case, no pain, no gain.  When we aren’t being exposed to both sides and – truly – being given the opportunity to decide for ourselves, what’s the personal growth in that?  Most of our news media in the US not only gives us the news but interprets it for us as well.  Saves us time and gets our attention if its the interpretation that immediately makes sense to us, but doesn’t this make us akin to cattle?  I, personally, find it rather condescending.

3)  How many times have we, and more importantly our children, been exposed to information that might have been better left alone and dealt with on the local stage rather than on the national or global stage?  I’ll leave it at that.

4)  I, personally, voted for my politicians because they know politics better than I and generally trust their views align enough with mine that the outcome will work for me.  I am ok to let them do their job and make the compromises necessary to get things done.  So, the bombardment in the news media of every little step our politicians takes is, for me, way too much information.  And, it certainly speaks to our current seeming standstill.

Bottom line, politicians aren’t our biggest issue.  I dare say they’d get a lot more done if the media hadn’t created a whole slew of micromanagers with whom they need to contend.

‘nough said.

Make it a discerning day,

~ Jacqueline