The British are NOT Coming — Film at Eleven

  More than 225 years ago, Paul Revere made his famous midnight ride to let Americans know "The British are coming!" It was important, life-changing news. But how times have changed! Today, thanks to a thriving media and broadcast industry, "the news" is brought to us every hour on the hour -- whether something important is happening or not. And at least one historian says that all this daily "news product" is, well, making us dumb. In his book, How the News Makes Us Dumb, author John Sommerville observes that people used to exchange news only when something really important happened. But what are we given as "breaking news" today? On the typical morning news program we may find out that the president has a new dog, or see what celebrities are wearing. We learn what the weather was like yesterday in Bucharest, or discover what some film critic thinks of Hollywood's latest flick. In other words, most of what's called "news" today is really just a flood of trivia -- mostly inconsequential data that will be soon forgotten. Sommerville calls this the "flotsam and foam" of history. If you don't believe it, check out a newspaper from 50 years ago. How much of what you find is truly newsworthy? And how much of it influenced the course of history? Not much. But if nothing truly important happens most of the time, why do reporters behave as though they have earth-shattering news for us every single day? Sommerville suggests it's because news is an industry now. And, he says, "you can't have a news business unless you pretend that the news is important every day. If publishers waited for something really important to happen, they might be idle for weeks and their capital assets would get rusty." That's why the media spend so much time convincing us that all "news" has the same value. A story about a 10-year-old winning the prize for the biggest pumpkin is given just as much coverage -- and as many broadcast minutes -- as a story about a conflict in Europe, or war in the Middle East. We're subjected to this daily avalanche of data because the very definition of news changed. No longer is it focused on the occasional life-changing event. It's excitement, entertainment, and above all, constant change. Sommerville says news is whatever publishers and broadcasters "think they can get us interested in and get us to pay for." This is why he says the news is making us dumb. The very dailiness of the news makes us lose perspective. And when every story has equal value, we lose the ability to distinguish what is truly important from what is merely sensational. All of this makes the news industry a natural antagonist to biblical wisdom. As Sommerville puts it, "News is only aware of change, while religion tries to concentrate on the eternal." Maybe that's why C. S. Lewis made a personal habit of staying away from newspapers altogether. Well, I don't recommend that. But Sommerville's book, How the News Makes Us Dumb, helps us to put the news in perspective. And if we aren't caught up in all of the media babble, we just might discover the beginning of wisdom.  

05/30/00