The truth won't speak for itself

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.editorialboard.com/the-truth-wont-speak-for-itself/


Lester Holt, the NBC News anchor, interviewed the president last week. In response to a question about inflation and “what your definition of ‘temporary’ is,” Joe Biden said Holt was being “a wise guy.”

While that got the most attention, there was something else worthy of our time. The interview illustrated a problem all democracies share in the link between the public, public opinion and the press.

To be free, the people need information to address their collective and complex problems. To understand it, the information must be simple. But simplifying it often distorts it, preventing the people from solving their problems and in the process, preventing them from being free.

This issue has legs. In 1969, the Columbia Journalism Review asked Fred Friendly, who, with Edward R. Murrow, created “See It Now,” to interview Walter Lippmann, the father of professional punditry. Friendly asked how many problems the American people can “digest at one time without breaking at the seams.” He was referring to Vietnam, crime and “the race problem,” but his question could just as easily apply to our current complicated moment. Lippman answered:

“Undoubtedly the mass media oversimplify. The American people are very simplistic, they want to be told that things are absolute, that they’re black or white. They don’t want to be bothered very long.”

*snip*

[SheltieLover]

1. K&R!