The role of Journalist

Disclaimer: I am neither an educator nor a journalist.


I've been thinking about the relationship between journalism and education. At first glance, there is none, but… for the majority of Americans, formal education ends upon attainment of either a high school or college diploma. And for most part, any addition 'schooling' is vocation specific training. This means that aside from independent pursuit of further knowledge, the primary source of information, as it would equate in the slightest way to education, would be news consumption. It's been made clear from two published studies that an individual's primary source of news has a significant effect on their understanding of current events. I want to know if this extends to analytical thinking skills: is there a relationship between an individual's primary source of news and their ability to analyze information?

Here are 2 examples of news stories with great teaching/learning potential:

(1) The National Rifle Association (NRA) has interpreted the Obama administration's 'gun' policy to be that the lack of laws restricting gun means more gun restrictions.

This completely violates the principle of cause and effect when A is the cause and B is the effect: if A happens, then B results and if A does not happen, then B is absent

The NRA is arguing that if A does not happen, then B results, where A is restrictive gun laws and B is greater gun restrictions. As the robot character in Lost in Space would say "this does not compute."


(2) The intense arguments offered by John McCain and Lindsey Graham to discredit Susan Rice for her misleading public comments on the events leading up to the deaths of American diplomats in Libya violate simple equivalency equations.

if
top level political figure A makes misleading remarks = person A should be barred from political advancement

then,
top level political figure B makes misleading remarks = person B should have been barred from political advancement.

The players are obvious: A = Susan Rice, B = Condoleezza Rice.


…To paraphrase Jon Stewart:

if
person A makes misleading remarks on national television = irresponsible

then,
person B making misleading remarks on national television = irresponsible
and
person C making misleading remarks on national television = irresponsible

now fill in the blanks…
person A = Susan Rice
person B = John McCain
person C = Lindsey Graham


Anecdotally, it would easy to presuppose a difference based on pre-2012-election attacks on Nate Silver's statistical analysis of public opinion polls and the active rejection of 'the reality based universe'. But as much of what passes for journalism is more accurately deemed stenography, the question remains open. We can only hope that should such a study be conducted, its results be used to improve the state and quality of modern journalism.

Conservative world view

Disclaimer: I am not a social scientist.

Modern conservatives have a strangely inverted conception of how the universe is organized. On one hand, they advocate a moral high ground by making essentially humanitarian arguments based their Christian faith in Jesus Christ and the Almighty. On the other hand, they closely adhere to the principle of corporate indifference by arguing for policies as the 'cost of doing business'. What's odd is that they off by 180 degrees.

conservative view:
- corporations are indifferent
- God is a humanist and a humanitarian

Of course this completely ignores the fact that corporations are completely artificial (human made) institutions. Their entire existence, the rules and laws under which they are created, regulated and operate are completely devised by humans; so by definition, they are human enterprises subject to human imposed limits. And natural events and disasters are attributed to a humanitarian Almighty as 'Acts of God' which are, in reality, governed by laws of physics which are both immutable and indifferent.

reality:
- corporations have humanitarian potential
- 'Acts of God' are determined by indifferent laws of physics

In many ways, modern conservatives are to be pitied. They have so little faith in the humanity of humans that we humans are deigned incapable of designing humanitarian corporations. They are so fearful of the evolution of the environment and western thought and culture that they cling ferociously to the remnants of a two millennium old cult. The challenge to progressives is to advance a progressive agenda while gently and tenderly nurturing a reality based world view across the entire political spectrum in the face of the fiery rhetoric of the conservative media.