In a past life, I taught high-school English (for a very
short time). My approach wasn't to lecture with facts while bored teens
daydreamed about dates and basketball and the latest dance craze. I thought the
most important way to teach facts was to teach how to think about information.
In short, I wanted students to think for themselves, to
carve their own opinions based on evidence because I believed learning to think
and analyze is the way to learn and draw strong conclusions.
This past month, down with illness, I was watching the news
on TV. The moving headlines at the bottom of the screen (officially called chyron)
was scrolling along with short blurbs concerning important topics of the day.
One particular crawl caught my eye and reading this, I got
to thinking ... is this leader board reporting or indoctrinating ("helping"
you shape an opinion by the way a sentence is worded?)
The Potential
Headline
Let me give you an example of a headline that could have
worked its way across the bottom of the TV screen.
Four people killed, four seriously injured in head-on crash.
What are your thoughts when you read that? Do you wonder
where the crash occurred? Do you wonder if you might know any of the victims?
Do you immediately empathize with the families of the victims? Do you want to
know if children were involved? Do you care that four human beings were snuffed
out of existence in an instant? Do you think, "How sad," or
"There for the grace of God," or "rest in peace"?
If you do, then you are indicating that you are a thoughtful
human being who cares about his or her fellow human beings.
The Real Headline
Now the example I gave was an edited (by me) headline of one
that was actually broadcast and it would have been correct because it reported
one thing--a traffic accident claimed four lives. But that's not how the
network headline read. Read the actual wording and tell me how whether your
reaction changes:
Four illegal aliens killed, four seriously injured in
head-on crash.
Do you still care about any of these human beings and the
fact that they lost their lives or do you see this as fuel for a political
issue--in this case immigration? Do you
wonder why the network decided to write the headline this way or if the local
station made this decision?
Do you see how two words can completely shape how you
think--or fuel the way you've already been taught to think?
It seems that gone are the days when a news reporter would
report information without injection personal opinion specifically to bolster
decisions or opinions you've already made or to sway you into the opinion of
the media you are watching. Sometimes the "influence peddling" is
blatant opinion disguised as real news and sometimes, as with the example here,
it is kind of shaded as real news. And it's almost always distinguished by the
political leanings of the news source, be it radio, TV, newspaper or internet.
Do you let media do
your thinking for you?
