My very first political memory was Gerald Ford entering the White House.
I have no idea now why that would have been the one, except perhaps a function of age: in those days there was only a single television and limited channels in our house so the likelihood looking back is it is simply the time that my parents happened to be watching the news. I do not even remember that I knew what I was watching (only that I was watching it); it was years later that I understood both what I had seen and the backstory that brought us to that point.
Trying to explain how news used to function to my own children is like spinning a tale that starts "Once Upon A Time": No InterWeb. No 24 hour cycle. Limited choices of news outlets: NABCS and local affiliates, where the cycle was morning, noon, and evenings at 5:00 PM (interspersion for national news) and follow up at 6:00 PM with late news at 11 PM. Radio serving as an actual conduit of news instead of just music and talk programs. Written materials - newspapers, magazines - that were at least 24 hours behind the news cycle if not a week.
"How did you make do?" I suppose would be the question.
It is a question I sometimes ask myself now, when we now life in the 24/7/365 (366 in Leap Year) News Cycle. Where things happen literally on a second by second basis. Where we watch events happen in real time.
Where, in a real sense, life has almost become a movie which constantly playing in our heads and in our ears, should we let it.
I would be the first to admit it is addictive. I can get dragged into that loop, constantly checking my less-than-smartphone to see if there is a breaking event (there almost never is). It can consume hours, should I choose to let it do so.
I have wondered about this, as I wonder about all those that suffer from the same issue: always wound up, always looking for that next immediate update. I do not wonder that we have come to the point noted above that the world has simply become a show that we are addicted to, a sort of Truman Show where we are convinced that we should watch because somewhere deep down, we feel that somehow we have the ability to impact events thousands of miles away from us in some meaningful way when in fact we are no more than spectators - and spectators that waste far too much time on that which we cannot impact and ignore that which we can.
There is not a lot I can do about events out there, other than - at least for me - figure out whatever my ability to follow things is and then cut it by 60% just to be safe. This is something I have actually done: I make the rounds in the morning and once in the evening and call it complete. Seldom do I find something that I should have known that I could have changed out there.
It does make me wonder though: Am I looking to the news cycle and events out there to avoid the real work I need to do internally and the good things I could do externally?
Different people can be addicted to different things, that ability to be in contact immediately/always is a powerful drug. Saw a neighbor woman watering the flowers in front of her home last evening, she hauled out the cell phone and started talking, a minute later her husband walked out the garage door, on HIS cell phone and they stood there six feet away from each other, talking on their cell phones for another 10,15 seconds and then both hung up and he walked to the corner of the house while she continued watering.
ReplyDeleteNylon12, that is a powerful observation. We have become addicted to the ability to always be in constant communication - and not only that, but to be able to get the person we are trying to reach immediately.
DeleteThings were even rougher in my childhood as we had no television and our only news source for the most part was a yesterday's newspaper which we got a day late and because it took a day to compose, was news that was at minimum two days old at that point. I don't recall finding that situation lacking.
ReplyDeleteThese days, I watch the evening news and call it good though I do have news alerts that flash to my phone a handful of times a day. I never read more than the headline because like you said, they are all out of my control at that point and I would rather just get the recap at 5:30 instead of hours of pontification.
Ed, we got the local paper (at that time two days a week), the regional paper (daily), and the news. To your point I do not know that it was ever felt we "did not get enough news".
DeleteI occasionally listen to local news on the radio; beyond that it is a handful of sites for events. Really, almost all of it is out of our control.
My first political memory was the Nixon-Humphrey race. Mom and dad were very animated that year. I wasn't even in school yet, but it was pretty clear who they were voting for. Mom would vote in the opposite party primary for the biggest clown running. Then she'd vote in the general election for who she really wanted. She was quite a lady.
ReplyDeleteSTxAR, politics were never discussed in our household. I do remember once hearing my mother comment that my grandparents were on opposite sides and thus it was not something that they would discuss when we were all together. Apparently that habit snuck over into the general interactions.
DeleteThree channels that went off the air at midnight followed by the National Anthem.
ReplyDeleteMy first political memory was Kennedy's assassination.
For me the TV goes off at 6PM and no TV on Sunday. And I try not to watch the news online. I didn't even know about the attempt until Sunday afternoon when one of my sons told me.
You all be safe and God bless.
Linda, that is actually a great policy. I may borrow some of it for myself.
DeleteThe trouble with the 24-hour "news" cycle is that in any given hour, maybe two or three minutes are actual new. The rest is conjecture. I poke my head into a couple of websites during the day. Maybe an hour of "news" TV in the evening. That's it. I tend to believe what's happening in front of my eyes, or in front of the eyes of a few trusted friends. In it's most basic form, TV and radio news is designed to keep you anxious, angry, and watching, so that they can sell cars, pillows, and sleep aids... ...I'm gittin' to old fer that...
ReplyDeletePete, that is pretty accurate. Add in the puff pieces and not relevant news, and likely you only have that limited amount of updated news.
DeleteI will say that one good thing about news aggregator sites is that I can avoid most of the ads and only look at things I want. Anything that requires my ad blocker to go down is generally ignored.
Good post, TB. And good question at the end. I relate to everything you wrote, and I, too, wonder how on earth we actually learned stuff when all we had was a card catalog and now, seemingly random, library books and journals to do our research from. And yet... somehow I feel like I actually know less now. I suppose part of that is the old adage, "the more I learn, the less I know, but I also think we owned information (knew things) in a different way when we didn't have the internet. You had to know it. There was no googling it later to check and see if you had your information straight.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate having information at my fingertips, but I also miss the simplicity of a less "connected" life.
Becki, the world that I got my degrees in - books and journals and hard copies and libraries - seems like a lost world now. Like you, I feel like I know less even though I am thrust into a world where I am expected to know more.
DeleteOne of the reason we owned the information is because we had to memorize it or have it at hand in the form of references. Now, there is no need to do that; it is always at our fingertips.
And yes, we did indeed have to "know" it. And sometimes, stake our argument on it.
I will say this is a good encouragement to get back to memorization and references and away from "just checking every time".