I spoke to my nephew last night. He told me that he gets all his news from social media. He has no sense that any source of news is any more valid than any other. This is another way of saying that journalism is dead. Somewhere along the way, journalists lost their legitimacy. I think part of it is the total lack of courtesy among journalists on the beat, but the greater part is journalists’ failure to dominate social media.
It has been a long time since Walter Cronkite was beyond dispute. Even longer since Edward R. Murrow told us the news. “And that’s the way it was” has not been heard for decades.
My nephew asked, “How am I supposed to fact check?” Any source of truth is subject to suspicion. In fact, how is anyone to discover any truth? Where is the trusted source of information? Wikipedia can be written by anybody. CNN, Fox News, NBS, MSNBC, and the myriad podcasts all telling us stuff are all focused on viewership, so what do we believe?
I try to follow sites that seem to be data driven. But how can I really know?
Science has peer review for their articles. This means the article is reviewed by cynical, distrustful people who are trained to believe in available data. Passing a peer review is hard.
By comparison, journalism is easy. Too easy. I have no way of persuading my nephew that we are on the brink of the total collapse of personal liberty. He says, “Let’s see how things are in six months.” I say, “That may be too late.” We are not communicating our ideas to each other.
In the old days, we would look things up in books. There was a certain permanence of information in books. Now one “googles” data. Google brings you what Google thinks you want to hear.
All of this makes a would-be autocrat hard to challenge. Did he fire all his enemies? Did he fire all the guys giving Elon Musk trouble? Who knows? I like to follow the money, but that is circumstantial evidence. It is my fear — and I have trouble sleeping at night — that by the time we know for sure, it will be far too late.
Bill Gillmore
Columbus
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 34 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
