A Well-Balanced Media Part 1 of 5

Has your doctor ever told you to eat a well-balanced diet? Has he ever told you to cut back on carbs or eat more vegetables? Has he ever told you to watch what you eat? Perhaps it wasn’t your doctor. Perhaps it was a parent or spouse. Perhaps it’s just common knowledge.

What about your social life? “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” This is an old proverb that tells us to balance our life between work and play. It’s another pearl of wisdom to add balance to what we do.

We know these sayings to be true. Too much work brings a lacking in one’s life just as too much pizza brings on an unhealthy balance. We try to watch what we eat and what we do. We try to balance our lives and balance what we bring into it.

The question is, do we do the same with the information that we receive through media?

The question is just as important as the other examples above. A highly opinionated view of news, broadcasted to ensure the same opinion in others, is just as toxic as only eating ice cream or working until you drop. Yet, despite knowing this, many stay with one opinionated media or another, letting only one side influence their lives while tuning out everything else. Why is this?

Perhaps it is easier to relate to someone who has the same thoughts and opinions as the listener has. It is easier to nod in agreement than to change an opinion or view. It is easier to remain stagnant than to face the pain of growth through enlightenment and wisdom.

And yet none of us want to be ignorant. None of us truly wish to be stagnant. So, how do gain the input needed that will help us have a more well balanced life? Simple…check the media of the information being received. Is this a well-balanced media? How can one ensure that the journalism that is listened to is fair? How do we even know if it’s ethical?

Here are the five principles of ethical journalism to help ensure that information received is well-balanced: https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/who-we-are/5-principles-of-journalism?fbclid=IwAR1MdBYWSvoJjeeqctwl_lTjg1hGoSMkFm88Dyhyc3PnqT7bxon-QAxj-ac

Truth and Accuracy

“Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.”

While journalism has a business to make money by broadcasting information, it isn’t in the business to broadcast fiction. Just because it sells and just because it sounds good, doesn’t mean that it’s true. There are many best selling fictional books and big hit movies that sell very well, but these are fiction and we know this. However, it is more difficult to know if what we see in media is true or not. We, as the consumers of the information, must be wise enough to seek out other sources to see if it is true.

Here are some historical inaccuracies that have mislead or misinformed the public.

The Chicago Daily Tribune ran a headline showing Dewey defeating Truman in the presidential election on November 3, 1948. This was not true as Truman became the President and Dewey did not.

Prince Harry flipping off the crowd? Look again

Inaccuracy could also simply be an omission of part of the story. Recently there was a story of a group of students who surrounded a Native American and harassed him. While the initial video did seem to support this story, it wasn’t until the whole video arose that showed that there was far more to this story than originally put forth. This in turned created harm to the students.

But what about the First Amendment, the freedom of the press and freedom of speech? Doesn’t this ensure that the press can write whatever they want? No, not exactly. While the Second Amendments gives an individual the right to keep and bear arms, it does not give the right to harm individuals without due cause (self defense). One simply can’t go on a shooting spree. In the same way, the First Amendment does not give the right to do harm with misinformation through lies or omission.

While at first these comparisons seem radically different from each other, there is still damage that has been done. The above students received a huge backlash before the whole story was able to come to bear. A Supreme Court Justice candidate was widely accused of horrible wrong doing, until a great deal of the source material proved to be false and all accusations were dismissed. A well known celebrity had a story that white supremacists threatened him with a lynching, until it was found out that he hired individuals to act out a faked situation.

Until facts were sorted out, many media outlets ran with fake or inaccurate information which lead to death threats of the above students and the Supreme Court Justice candidate Brett Kavanaugh. Just as an individual going on a shooting spree destroys lives, so do lies and misinformation destroy lives socially, economically, emotionally and sometimes physically.

A good well-balanced media will do its best to seek out the truth first, before placing out an article due to the fact that their very words impact so many and on so many levels. And, while it is important that the news outlets do their due diligence in their deliverance, it is also our responsibility to seek out the truth through various outlets, even when they don’t necessarily merge with our own opinions.

So now comes the hard question. Does your favorite news outlet do its due diligence to inform the truth, and the whole truth or do they run with an article that will sell, simply to increase their ratings and appeal to a divided and opinionated crowd? It might be time to listen to a few other outlets and figure it out for yourself.

To coin a couple of phrases from “The X-Files”: “I want to believe” and “The truth is out there.”

So, to come to a conclusion of part 1: Stay healthy and maintain a well-balanced input of media by seeking the truth; not by merely listening to what itching ears want to hear, but by being wise and seeing if what was said was true.