This scene from The Newsroom in 2012 seems to be long overdue in the cable newsrooms of today. I want to know when was the last time we saw a news anchor apologize for trying to bump up ratings as they fed people the news that people wanted to hear rather than the news that was pertinent to the current day to day operations of the US and the world. While this seems ideal to have a news team that would give informed opinions and the most in-depth and accurate news, it also seems more like a fairy tale since these days it would seem that everything is either fake news or well-informed based upon what the current POTUS and his followers think.
Fake news is indeed a problem since it deceives, tricks, and misdirects people from what really matters at any given time. It is the type of news that can mislead people and skew their thinking in such a way that the no longer know who to fully trust. The problem is that sorting out fake news from real news has become such a hassle that often times fake news is thought to be real and real news is pushed off as fake. What people want to believe versus what newsrooms want to report on has suffered a massive disconnect in the past few years and it’s only growing worse. People don’t want to hear about certain subjects and will cry out that it is fake news rather than face the idea that such things could be true. On the other hand they don’t want to bed the kind of ridiculous hype that seems absolutely unbelievable and want something hard-hitting and truthful, but only so long as they can fully believe it.
This is not the time to be a part of the news media unless you have thick skin and can understand one immutable fact: people are lost.
That might seem like an odd statement but it’s very true. Without any one newscast that one hundred percent of any population can believe the effort of bringing the news to people has become something of a difficulty that is not enviable at all. Those newscasters that are in truth trying to bring real news to the newsroom and inform people the best they can without any preamble are the bold few that still believe in the sanctity of the news and what it means to the people of the world. They want to tell and explain the stories that don’t make sense. They want people to know what’s going on, and they want the truth to come out. But their efforts are continually stymied by those that do not want to tell the truth or that attempt to dodge and evade the truth because it is not a convenient thing.
There is a serious lack of accountability in this world at the moment and in the news room it has become an epidemic. Let’s just hope that it hasn’t gone so far that real news has become little more than another story that people won’t believe.
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