*I definitely have certain leanings in politics, but I try very hard to keep that from my writing. My intention is to not bias the reader. If my skirting around and not making a judgement feels like an endorsement of one belief over another, that is not my intent. I simply want to get people thinking.
Driving with my husband about a week ago, I mentioned something I had seen on Instagram.
Someone had spliced together footage of different TV personalities. First, they showed them touting the necessity and, in some cases, the downright patriotism of involving federal officers in the protests in Portland, Oregon. Of course, the words they used were a bit different. Instead of protests they said things like, lawlessness, mobs, and rioting.
This was juxtaposed against footage of the same reporters wagging a finger at the government’s “overreach, entitlement, and tyranny” when federal agents were dispatched to round up illegally grazing cattle in the Bundy Ranch standoff in 2014.
My husband and I hashed out the differences in the two situations and the coverage they received. We also discussed the difficult decisions those in power have to make. I had to ask, “Do you think the people, the news stations, are aware of the massive contradictions in the way they have chosen to report the news? They way they attack one person in power then praise another for making similar decisions?”
When a person rants about people clogging up the judicial system with unnecessary lawsuits then sues their former boss for firing them. Or a news anchor who laughs at audio of a woman being harassed while calling for the dismissal of a man accused of the same thing. Do they see the contradiction, the hypocrisy?
My husband thinks then says, “Yes, of course they see it, they just don’t care, it gets them viewers and ratings.”
I choose to disagree. “Maybe not, maybe they think the situations are different enough to warrant the attack or the praise. Maybe, deep down, they truly believe what they are doing is right and valid and worthy.”
I have to say, as this year continues to eek forward, it is getting harder and harder to cling to my naïve belief that people are good and kind and want to do right. Unfortunately, cynicism and doubt are creeping in. The illusion that the people we rely on to tell us the facts are being thoughtful and honest in their testimonies is slowly fading. The idea that people tune into the news not to hear the truth but to hear what they want to hear; to get riled up or placated, feels wrong. How to fix it? How to fix a system that has so thoroughly left behind the idea of reporting in good faith, leaves one baffled. Knowing there is nothing to be done engenders a sick feeling of impotence, because the system is so broken, how could it possibly be fixed?
I don’t have the answer, but the important thing is to try. There is no easy fix. This is something the human race struggles with. We want things simple; we want ideas and beliefs to fit inside a box. That is the reason we have stereotypes; it is the human brain’s attempt to categorize and file away information. It is the reason we have what is being called a “cancel culture” because the human race struggles to understand that people are not wholly evil or wholly good but each and every one of us sits on a continuum of the two. In order to fix what is wrong, in order to see what is wrong, we have to fight against that innate desire to simplify and categorize. Until that happens, we are going to be stuck in this confusing contradiction of attack and pacification from those who should be giving us the truth.
Rebecca Lamprey 