The Two Realities
Increasingly news sources are diverging making objective reality difficult to ascertain
Another quick post today. Been a little consumed with some work stuff recently, so hope to get back to more in-depth stuff shortly.
This Monday Morning was much like most other Monday mornings in our new hyper-political media landscape. If you were conservative leaning you may have brought up the Fox News. The headline article was of a flash-mob ransacking of a convenience store in Philadelphia (after a similar incident occurred in Los Angeles a month ago). You will also see articles on the illegal immigration crisis, the homeless issues in Los Angeles, attacks on pro-life organizations not being prosecuted, and a former NASCAR Champion retiring. All of this is displayed above the fold.
Readers of CNN had a completely different experience. Not a somewhat different experience where both news organizations coalesced around several big stories and varied around the edges. Not one of the five top stories on the Fox News website are represented above the fold on CNN's page. There are no less than 8 stories regarding Trump and January 6, at least 4 on Russia/Ukraine, and a variety of other stories like "Should you eat bread?" Also, of note are some stories on Hurrican Ian, which Fox News has as the first story just below their headline articles.
Regardless of which side of the aisle one falls on, we should all be disturbed at the fun-house mirror that what is supposed to be objective news has become. We are creating ostensibly two tribes of people that live in completely different objective realities. Each side believes the other is crazy because the focus of their media narratives are so completely misaligned.
A CNN reader, especially those living outside of large metropolitan areas, may be blissfully unaware of the shocking rise of crime in the USA, especially focused on inner cities. If you have not seen these images, it may seem like a wild overreaction to hear conservatives talking about how crime is out of control. If you have not seen images of hundreds of people crossing the Rio Grande on a daily basis, it may not register to you the unprecedented nature of the immigration crisis on the southern border. If you haven't seen the tent cities sprawled across many of our urban areas, you may not realize the urban decay that is occurring throughout the country. If you are a CNN reader, these are not being presented to you as high-level issues.
If you are a Fox News reader you may not be nearly as concerned with Trump as the average CNN reader. The Russia/Ukraine war is not as front of mind as it would be viewed by the typical CNN reader. You may not care what experts think about whether you should eat bread or not.
And this divide in how the world is perceived, driven by the lens through which we have chosen to view it, is making political discourse more and more difficult. We are unable to even agree on what reality we are living in. What the baseline facts are such that we can have a discussion and find common ground.
Interestingly, I believe that those that are right-leaning are better suited to have a more grounded view of reality. I don't believe this is the fault of those that are left-leaning, but rather a feature of the society that we live in. Unless the only media you consume is from right leaning sources, it is impossible to insulate one self from the ideological viewpoints of the modern left. Their viewpoint pervades all of modern culture such that if you are watching any sitcom, or listening to music, or watching sports... you will get inundated with their views and rationales. But if you are left-leaning, it is relatively easy to insulate yourself from right-leaning views. Sure, you can get the fun-house mirror version as the left portrays anyone to the right of Nancy Pelosi as essentially some MAGA extremist ready to take over the capitol... but the actual view of where people on the right stand with regards to the issues likely eludes those on the right.
It must be incumbent on all of us to seek out more measured news sources. Reward outlets that can play it down the middle... or at least portray the views of both sides of the political aisle with equal amounts of intelligence and respect. This is where I feel like sites such as substack can excel. Voices that are not extremely polarizing to one side or the other can flourish in the environment. While I read a fair amount of conservative content on this site, I'm also exposed to content from middle of the road to further left leaning liberals such as Michael Shellenberger, Glen Greenwald, or Bari Weiss. To get a better understanding of those that have a differing opinion than your own, I would suggest others try and do the same.