Recently I was speaking with an older gentleman whom I otherwise hold in high regard. Somehow we started talking about Fox News...he's an avid viewer and I think he was trying to relate a segment he had seen. I mentioned how I had no trust in Fox News, as it's is slanted so far towards a Tea Party/neoConservative point of view that it's hard to believe anything one sees on there. "Oh no, it's true. It's fair and balanced. It says that it is."
I didn't really have a good response to his, because when you're so totally believing that your own truth is infallible, how can you even imagine it to be otherwise? How can I point out the inherent bias on "Your World With Neil Cavuto" or "Fox and Friends" when it seems so benign to those who take it in everyday? It's not like they come out and admit any form of bias, or disclose to their viewers that they hold to a certain ideology. So how can we tell that this bias exists without driving ourselves crazy by having to watch this crap and point it out each time it happens?
I don't watch Fox News intentionally, but it seems to be on everywhere you go. I'll notice it is on the TV at the rec center, or be at somebody's house where it is has been left on, and so sometimes it will present itself to me even though I don't care for it. But I've noticed a few things that show its bias for anybody who is willing to see it.
(Necessary admission: Yes, every newschannel has their own bias. MSNBC tilts liberal in particular. I get it. But I live in a red state where far too many people assume Fox News is gospel truth. Where I live I don't have to deal with people regularly who think that because Chris Matthews or Rachel Maddow said something that it must necessarily be true. If I did, I'd probably be just as annoyed with them and be writing about them. But I don't, so I won't.)
-1. What are the 10-word talking points up on screen during a segment? Because we live in such a distracted culture where we can't sit for even five minutes to listen to a segment, the producers of these news shows sum it up in 10 words or less in the bottom third of the screen (just above the 'crawl' section that makes people think they know what's going on in the world because they see a two-line summary of some huge event). For example, here's are some current headlines on FoxNews.com as I write on Friday afternoon (likely very similar to the on-screen points): "Dems reveal 2014 strategy to be smash and grab." "Under attack on all sides, Obama Democrats return to ramming speed." "Cost of offering health care might make some small businesses opt for fine." Three headlines, all painting democrats with a negative spin: they engage in smash and grab and ramming and their policies hurt business. What other takeaways can you get if you have the attention span of a moth? These expression are never overtly slanted...but the way they use words (and they are experts at this, I'll give them that) can shape the opinions their viewer form in very subtle ways.
-2. What kind of pictures do they put up of liberals? I've noticed this a lot more lately in social media and elsewhere. You can change perception by still pictures without even having to resort to photoshop. Most of the time when Fox News uses still images, Obama looks like he's about ready to puke, Hillary Clinton looks like a shrew, and Harry Reid looks like a wimp. No strong, positive pictures are available, I assume.
-3. At any given time, what are the other networks talking about? Here's a fun game (for sadists): at any given time, compare what CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News are talking about. What they talk about during their 'in-depth' segments tell you about the narrative that they are trying to push. Today most channels are talking about the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination. But as I was working out today the guy next to me who was watching Fox News on his machine was paying attention to the ways democrats are changing filibuster rules (unfair!) and more on the failures of Obamacare (incompetence!). Tell somebody in so many ways so many times and people will believe that this is the only way to tell the story.
-4. Who are the representative opponents who allow them to say see, we are fair and balanced because we let them talk? Yes, Fox News occasionally have liberals, but usually it's just a beaten-down Alan Colmes . Ever see a lumberjack match on pro wrestling, in which one guy is technically facing only one other guy but has a ton of people outside the ring knocking them around as well? That's what Fox News must be like for a liberal. In addition, most of the representative liberals I've noticed on there are not well-spoken; it's like they have taken the time to find the cheapest talking heads they can. Put them up against an expert from your side, and of course it will seem like that one point of view is markedly better. It's like comparing the Red Sox with the Wichita Wingnuts: don't be surprised if the Wingnuts aren't going to win a lot of games in a head-to-head competition.
The reality is that most people don't want to believe that their favorite point of view is a product of bias. We don't listen to what others have to say, and with the fractured 'narrowcasting' of news programs this separation only gets larger. But the first step of healing is the acknowledgment of the problem.
Friday, November 22, 2013
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Behind the 8 Ball
My daughter turned 8 recently. It's a fascinating age. Tonight at dinner much of the discussion centered on Santa Claus. How will he get into our house, as we don't have a chimney? Well, he can get in through the fairy door in the kitchen (which has a matching door out on the tree in the front yard). It's a tiny little door, so how might that work? Well, he's magical and he can shrink things to get through, just like he is immune to the fire when he goes through the chimneys. It's an age of questions and pondering and the like. Santa is already a question mark, but in a way he's still a possibility as well. I love the innocence and the seeking of 8.
But of course 8 has its darkness as well. She has never really been an 'easy' child to raise like my son. From the time when we brought her home from the hospital, when she simply never wanted to sleep alone, until even the present day, when she still has her nightmares and still wakes us up at night, she's always had her insecurities. She rages once in awhile at us, and I know that she's the cause of my grey hair. We sometimes dread the coming teenage years.
One of the things we have been really watching lately is how she interacts with her peers at school. When it comes to younger kids she loves to play the mother hen...get her a bunch of kindergarten kids who need bossing, and she's there. But around her peers? The little girl who has never liked being alone doesn't mind so much sitting alone or playing by herself at recess.
On the one hand this concerns me, because as a parent I want my kid to achieve and succeed socially. Who wants to raise an outcast? Sometimes I worry she isn't 'ascending' into second grade social stratospheres (yes, the class structure is already starting to develop at such a young age). Part of it may be that even as we have lived in this town since she was born we'll always be considered outsiders on some level. That's just small town life for you...stay a generation or four, and you'll be fully accepted. But part of it may be that she sometimes isn't quite as mature as some of the other kids. She's rather dance around like nobody's watching. She still very much has that little kid imagination when probably a lot of her friends have already decided against Santa.
But on the other hand I'm proud of her. In her younger days she would have raged and cried about not having everybody rotate around her. Now, though? She's basically fine with it. What this seems to tell me is that she doesn't think she has to be a follower of what everybody else does. Girls of the second grade are starting to learn that meanness that will become something of their trademark for the next twenty years of their lives. They'll exclude and bully and gossip about girls who don't live as the gang leader says they ought to live. Childhood, especially for girls, can be cruel. But I'm grateful that my daughter may well be learning to live above the fray. While the other girls are off in their groups gossiping and plotting, she's playing on the jungle gym and singing a song to herself.
We tell ourselves as Christians all the time not be followers of the world's ways. Perhaps, just perhaps, this lesson is being learned by my daughter.
But of course 8 has its darkness as well. She has never really been an 'easy' child to raise like my son. From the time when we brought her home from the hospital, when she simply never wanted to sleep alone, until even the present day, when she still has her nightmares and still wakes us up at night, she's always had her insecurities. She rages once in awhile at us, and I know that she's the cause of my grey hair. We sometimes dread the coming teenage years.
One of the things we have been really watching lately is how she interacts with her peers at school. When it comes to younger kids she loves to play the mother hen...get her a bunch of kindergarten kids who need bossing, and she's there. But around her peers? The little girl who has never liked being alone doesn't mind so much sitting alone or playing by herself at recess.
On the one hand this concerns me, because as a parent I want my kid to achieve and succeed socially. Who wants to raise an outcast? Sometimes I worry she isn't 'ascending' into second grade social stratospheres (yes, the class structure is already starting to develop at such a young age). Part of it may be that even as we have lived in this town since she was born we'll always be considered outsiders on some level. That's just small town life for you...stay a generation or four, and you'll be fully accepted. But part of it may be that she sometimes isn't quite as mature as some of the other kids. She's rather dance around like nobody's watching. She still very much has that little kid imagination when probably a lot of her friends have already decided against Santa.
But on the other hand I'm proud of her. In her younger days she would have raged and cried about not having everybody rotate around her. Now, though? She's basically fine with it. What this seems to tell me is that she doesn't think she has to be a follower of what everybody else does. Girls of the second grade are starting to learn that meanness that will become something of their trademark for the next twenty years of their lives. They'll exclude and bully and gossip about girls who don't live as the gang leader says they ought to live. Childhood, especially for girls, can be cruel. But I'm grateful that my daughter may well be learning to live above the fray. While the other girls are off in their groups gossiping and plotting, she's playing on the jungle gym and singing a song to herself.
We tell ourselves as Christians all the time not be followers of the world's ways. Perhaps, just perhaps, this lesson is being learned by my daughter.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Rick's death
An old friend of mine named Rick passed away yesterday. He had battled through leukemia several times but had recovered and done great things for God in the time that he had. He had spent time doing mission work in Japan, touched many lives, and will be sorely missed.
Most of the time when I mourn the loss of people they are those who have lived long, full lives, at least from my perspective. They are old, their bodies have extended past the traditional foursquare of life, and then they die. Rick, though, was in his mid-40s, the same as me. Most of us today who think about him think of what a shame it was that he didn't have a longer life than this.
Rick's certainly not the first guy of my generation to die early. The cheerleader a few years after high school killed in a car crash. The guy down the hall from me in college who died of an illness over the summer. A guy in my social club who drowned trying to save a kid at the lake. The guy who I picked on in youth group who died a few years ago from an illness. Too many people to name who were alive one day, dead the next, and always it was a surprise to hear that they were gone.
We expect people of a certain age to survive. Even when I heard last weekend that Rick's family was going to take him off a ventilator and it was not expected that he would survive, part of me expected that he would pull through this, that he'd be a scientific miracle, and he would have a few more years, even if it wasn't in good health. That only seemed right and fair.
Mickey Mantle's father died in his 40s, like many men who had worked in the coal mines of NE Oklahoma, and so Mickey assumed that his life would be short as well. His belief in a short life led to his womanizing, his alcoholism, and a life that perhaps did not live up to its potential. He lived into his 70s, but was it better for him to live this way?
But then I wonder whether it is good that we have an expectation to live into our 80s, as most trends now suggest. It is even thought that those who are born today might have a chance to live until they are 150, with better diet and medicine. Continually we are promised a longer life if we will just eat right take care of our bodies. Why do I go to the gym 4 times a week? Why do I bother with vegetables and fruit, even if I don't eat enough of them? Because I'm told that it's better to live longer.
Are we blessed to know that it is likely we will live long lives? We don't want to pull a Mantle and think that since life is (likely to be) short, we'd better do as much sin as we can. But a longer life...does it make us lazy? Do we not live as we ought to live because we think we have too much time? Even though life is longer than some have expected, we have a sense that there's always plenty of time. Mortality is only the problem of the old people, we think.
Maybe this is why so many people have an unfortunate death: many years are tacked onto the end of life that are, by most accounts, unhappy. Countless hours making doctors' appointments, taking medicines that cause too many side effects, becoming a burden upon others, living lives knowing you can't do most of the things you want to do because you are afraid of falling or need to stay home near the toilet. What kind of life is that? We've been brainwashed into thinking that a long life is so much better than a short one.
I've often thought (and said) that the day before I come down with a debilitating illness that starts me on my spiral I want to be hit by a bus. I hope that God will grant me that request. I don't want to live years or decades in old age. Maybe some do...I don't. I'd rather live enough years to be enjoyable, but not so many that life becomes a burden.
We grieve Rick's loss, but he's also fortunate as well. I love my wife and kids and church and job and so many other things. But today Rick is the one who is home with the LORD, who is fellowshiping with others who have been fortunate enough to die in Christ. His physical life is not as long as most of our lives today, but his eternal life has already begun.
I'm still a long ways away from that point in which I fully expect my peers to start dying off, where I don't plan a lot each week because I think I'll probably have to go to somebody's funeral. But a lot of me hopes that I don't have to do that at all; I'd rather be with the Lord first.
Most of the time when I mourn the loss of people they are those who have lived long, full lives, at least from my perspective. They are old, their bodies have extended past the traditional foursquare of life, and then they die. Rick, though, was in his mid-40s, the same as me. Most of us today who think about him think of what a shame it was that he didn't have a longer life than this.
Rick's certainly not the first guy of my generation to die early. The cheerleader a few years after high school killed in a car crash. The guy down the hall from me in college who died of an illness over the summer. A guy in my social club who drowned trying to save a kid at the lake. The guy who I picked on in youth group who died a few years ago from an illness. Too many people to name who were alive one day, dead the next, and always it was a surprise to hear that they were gone.
We expect people of a certain age to survive. Even when I heard last weekend that Rick's family was going to take him off a ventilator and it was not expected that he would survive, part of me expected that he would pull through this, that he'd be a scientific miracle, and he would have a few more years, even if it wasn't in good health. That only seemed right and fair.
Mickey Mantle's father died in his 40s, like many men who had worked in the coal mines of NE Oklahoma, and so Mickey assumed that his life would be short as well. His belief in a short life led to his womanizing, his alcoholism, and a life that perhaps did not live up to its potential. He lived into his 70s, but was it better for him to live this way?
But then I wonder whether it is good that we have an expectation to live into our 80s, as most trends now suggest. It is even thought that those who are born today might have a chance to live until they are 150, with better diet and medicine. Continually we are promised a longer life if we will just eat right take care of our bodies. Why do I go to the gym 4 times a week? Why do I bother with vegetables and fruit, even if I don't eat enough of them? Because I'm told that it's better to live longer.
Are we blessed to know that it is likely we will live long lives? We don't want to pull a Mantle and think that since life is (likely to be) short, we'd better do as much sin as we can. But a longer life...does it make us lazy? Do we not live as we ought to live because we think we have too much time? Even though life is longer than some have expected, we have a sense that there's always plenty of time. Mortality is only the problem of the old people, we think.
Maybe this is why so many people have an unfortunate death: many years are tacked onto the end of life that are, by most accounts, unhappy. Countless hours making doctors' appointments, taking medicines that cause too many side effects, becoming a burden upon others, living lives knowing you can't do most of the things you want to do because you are afraid of falling or need to stay home near the toilet. What kind of life is that? We've been brainwashed into thinking that a long life is so much better than a short one.
I've often thought (and said) that the day before I come down with a debilitating illness that starts me on my spiral I want to be hit by a bus. I hope that God will grant me that request. I don't want to live years or decades in old age. Maybe some do...I don't. I'd rather live enough years to be enjoyable, but not so many that life becomes a burden.
We grieve Rick's loss, but he's also fortunate as well. I love my wife and kids and church and job and so many other things. But today Rick is the one who is home with the LORD, who is fellowshiping with others who have been fortunate enough to die in Christ. His physical life is not as long as most of our lives today, but his eternal life has already begun.
I'm still a long ways away from that point in which I fully expect my peers to start dying off, where I don't plan a lot each week because I think I'll probably have to go to somebody's funeral. But a lot of me hopes that I don't have to do that at all; I'd rather be with the Lord first.
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