Robert Dighton: Well Neighbour-- What's the News?,
from A Set of Heads (c. 1795)

"Few of yesterday's urgencies ever came to pass."

I no longer understand what constitutes news, if, indeed, I ever did know. It apparently had something to do with urgency and importance, neither of which criteria much of what passes as news satisfies today. The “all the news that’s fit to print” NYTimes fills its pages with little urgency and seemingly less importance daily. I still subscribe, if only to maintain access to an outlet that doesn’t just pretend to be in the news business, unlike most of the offerings piggybacking on social media’s coverage. Every little blemish seems to qualify as News to many of those. I long ago refused to engage on Twitter, now ‘X’, not only because I never figured out how to use it, but also because it seemed an unseemly outlet for sharing anything serious. News, I still firmly believe, must be serious business or it’s not a business at all.

Fox (Faux) News created an infotainment product, if not an infotaintment one. Its concept called for creating an alluring spectacle first, then sprinkling in little bits of News to give it gravitas. Even those little bits could dilute the entertainment parts, so they also added lies in liberal quantities. They never promised to be all-the-news-fit-to-broadcast, but “fair and balanced.” They were the opposite of fair and balanced and often not News at all. Needless to say, they became popular among those who watched television during daylight hours. The Rush Limbaugh crowd easily transplanted their hate radio addiction to the cable ‘news’ version, and a notorious Australian “yellow” “journalist” made billions under the ‘never overestimate your audience’ principle and the ‘how low can you go’ ethic.

My social media news feed contains less News than the local Safeway shopper circular. Little of it seems terribly urgent or especially consequential. Much of it comes hyped, even the actual News, I suppose, because it must compete and everyone’s hyping. Every event purports to be world-changing and hair-on-fire urgent, though little of it genuinely qualifies as such. The result seems to be a panoply of flashing lights that draw my attention but rarely deliver anything life-changing, or even life-threatening. I’ve become inured to disappointment. The hook attracts, then bites. I escape through fate or good fortune, or I swallow the lede hook, line, sinker, and pole. This diet does not seem especially nourishing.

For much of my adult life, I lived with NPR. It was created when I was in my early twenties, and it was a novel and welcomed presence in my life then. Newspapers still held credibility and circulation, and TV News had not yet completely disgraced itself, but NPR woke me up most mornings and filled me in on the doings while I breakfasted. It was more convenient, and it featured genuine entertainment, too. I was addicted to NPR for twenty or thirty years, maybe more. During that time, it was unthinkable that I wouldn’t listen to Morning Edition and All Things Considered, along with Fresh Air, Prairie Home Companion, and even Weekend Edition. NPR did a decent job of summarizing what I would have found in the New York Times and the Washington Post had I been able to subscribe to them in my location. I thought of them as a democratization of elite journalism. I felt extremely well-informed.

These days, NPR reporters end their sentences with question marks, like interns, and their credibility has slipped. Our local AM radio station belongs to the Sinclair Network, which means it’s turned to hate speech and conservative social conditioning in place of providing News. I tiptoe my way through my feeds, discouraged by the offerings. The damned algorithm chooses for me, so I cannot always access the outlets I’d prefer to reference. The media climate seems decidedly unsettled and hostile, and my satisfaction with available News offerings has fallen to an all-time low. I do not know what’s going on. I’m losing interest in ever knowing again. I take frequent respite from even trying to be well-informed. Few of yesterday’s urgencies ever came to pass. This, too, shall also pass.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz