I was on the road quite a bit this past weekend and in order to make the time go faster, I tried listening to talk radio. This is something I hadn't really ever done before so it was a new experience and my impressions of it are limited to a few hours of listening. Normally I wouldn't make judgments and what have you with such short exposure, but I need to vent some frustration.
First of all while browsing through the AM stations trying to find something interesting, I was surprised how poorly most of them came in. The only ones that came in really clear were either sports stations or evangelical Christian preachers. I did manage for short spurts of time to tune into a few politically oriented stations.
One of the first stations I started listening to was a discussion between the host and a Maryland professor about Capitalism's affect on American society and how it has changed over the years due to increasingly heavy advertising and marketing. At first the discussion was somewhat interesting and there were decent points brought up on both sides of the issue that at least gave me something to think about. After a while the discussion, which had started out with at least a thin layer of respect and open-mindedness, began to get more heated. Both men started repeating themselves constantly while not answering the other person's point, and their arguments got weaker and weaker with less evidence. I got the impression that the radio host was incredibly pompous while the professor was probably just extremely earnest. The affect was the same on either side regardless.
This is a trend I noticed pretty consistently as I scrolled through the stations. The worst ones were the shows that had no opponent and no discussion. It was basically just some guy masturbating his ego and spouting off his opinions as if they were most obvious thing in the world. You'd have to be blind or an idiot to not see his point. A lot of talk was about some 350 page immigration reform bill that no one had read. The bill had not been released to the public yet. Most of congress hadn't even seen it and these guys were all giving their opinion about whether it was/wasn't good.
That last paragraph was kind of off topic. The main problem I took from this experience (as well as my limited podcast debate listening) is that people don't come to a debate/discussion with any intention of listening. Most of these situations that I have seen don't have people coming to try to debate each other in order to find common ground or understanding. Their main goal isn't even really to debate their opponent's arguments. They come with the idea that they will just say what they believe over and over until somebody accepts it. I desperately crave to hear a debate where both parties understand and respect each other. Where quality responsive arguments are made. Where facts are used from credible trustworthy sources. Where the tone of voice isn't one of malice or aggression. Where there is an air of friendship rather than hostility. I want to see people come together not necessarily with the intention of "winning," but instead with a thirst for understanding.
That being said, I think it is quite necessary for a person to stand strong behind her thoughts, beliefs, or ideals. You can still be passionate and champion an idea without holding a strong animosity towards those behind others.
When I look up to the skies I see your eyes a funny kind of yellow
6 comments:
The problem is that isn't how radio (or TV news shows) work these days. The shows aren't about the news or the topics, they're about the personalities. From O'Reilly and Hannity & Colmes on Fox to Scarborough and Matthews on MSNBC, I don't think any of them really care about the issue. Talking about not giving someone a chance - Hannity & Colmes just bashed Ron Paul during the Republican Debates even after he led in the text poll and would twist his comments however pleased them.
I think the main problem with most of the hotly debated issues is twofold. On one hand, you have the issues that are too complex for people to understand - how many people can accurately and succinctly describe partial birth abortion? The second is that they may not be as complex, but would take an entire semester of a college course to cover - the affect of Capitalism on American Society, all the nuances of the new Immigration Bill. So the hosts do what they know how - they dumb down the issues, ignore key parts, and pick out a few areas to argue for/against regardless of the points anyone else makes.
Johnny, the main problem with your point is that by dumbing down the argument for stupid people, they'll never get the chance to be exposed to key aspects of the debate. People need to learn that not everything relevent is entertaining in the way they want it to be.
You certainly have a point in why it happens, but I hope your not saying that this should be done simply because in general the target audience is uneducated, naive, or just wants to hear their ideals jacked off too. The only way to fix a problem like this, is as Kevin said to have more open, honest, and objective debate in all areas of life.
Except modern pop culture. Good lord does that shit suck. I truly believe shitty music, TV and movies are responsible for the large degrees of apathy and general sedation of society, resulting in quick talking point debates like the one's kevin is describing.
"People need to learn that not everything relevant is entertaining in the way they want it to be" - unfortunately, when we're talking about shows with ratings, this matters. My second point - things get dumbed down because they take too long to explain. This means most peoples attention spans can't last that long for it, so it happens.
In the end, I think although it would be great - open, honest debates do not equal ratings, meaning they won't happen.
I agree with Johnny for the most part. He's not arguing the way things should be, he's talking about the way things are.
I see nothing wrong with "dumbing down" an issue in order to be able to talk about it on some level. Call it summarizing or abstracting a portion of it. I think most people would agree that they would prefer most things explained in layman's terms rather than convoluted and detailed landscape specific language (like legal documents, for instance). But along with that there needs to be the realization that the issue under scrutiny probably has many more facets to it.
I agree with Johnny, as well. Talk radio is entertainment, not journalism. It demonstrates a larger problem with journalism being controlled by the penny-pinching investors on Wall Street.
If you report the news in an even-handed manner, you're only going to retain objective, open-minded people. Unfortunately, the vast majority of this country is partisan and wants to hear that they're right. In order to get the most consistent, loyal audience, these shows are catering to those egotistical desires.
I'm pretty convinced the only way journalism is going to survive (i.e. not all go the way of the tabloid) is to set up municipal nonprofits to report the news as a civic service. As much as I would rather avoid government involvement whenever possible, looking at the effectiveness of similarly situated organizations such as PBS and the St. Petersburg Times, the model seems to work exceptionally well.
With News Corp. looking to buy out the Wall Street Journal, one wonders if how much objective news reporting will still be around in 10 years.
Good post.
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