I'm leaving America with a lack of faith in its media

Some of it is the cynicism of age: the creeping realization of just how vain and self-important most denizens of the public sphere are. There’s also the demystification that comes with proximity: like everything in life, it’s all so much less glamorous up close, when you can smell the sour coffee breath of a media scrum. But it’s also apparent that the shattering of the media’s economic foundations, the rise of narrative journalism, the attention economy, and the fundamental absurdity of our age has corroded a once great edifice. The decline really struck me the other day while watching a segment on CNN, in which a grave young Irish chap called Donie O’Sullivan visited an event at the Trump Doral hotel in Miami, where attendees told him lots of silly things about January 6. Donie’s become a big player on the zeitgeisty misinformation beat, which in his case seems primarily to consist of finding the dumbest and most deluded Trump supporters he can and getting them to say dumb and deluded things, thus allowing CNN viewers to feast yet further on the diet of disdain, fear and self-affirmation that nourished them so healthily through the Trump era. I don’t think the misinformation problem is invented out of whole cloth: plenty of people on the right (and beyond) are consuming all manner of festering garbage online. Some of them invaded the Capitol, which was exceptionally dangerous. But those who believe the solution is getting smug young men to draw a red line of truth around our public sphere and shout ‘Misinformation!’ at anyone who crosses it are more interested in partisan gain than healthy debate. The latter has too often become a cloak for the former. The Aspen Institute has recently and apparently with a straight face appointed Prince Harry, the troubled British royal, to its ‘Commission on Information Disorder’.That pretty much sums up the problem.
Advertisement

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on HotAir Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement