News consists of facts presented by various media outlets. Today, print newspapers no longer hold the same importance or reach they did decades ago, leaving the dissemination of news content largely to more immediate channels.
This has led to a marked change in how news is written and disseminated. Whereas two or more decades ago, long before the emergence of various television networks that broadcast news content 24 hours a day, nonstop, news was condensed into printed newspapers, which were finalized in the early hours of the morning on the day they hit newsstands. Television news programs lasted only a few minutes and focused solely on topics that were newsworthy and had been confirmed in some way or were attributed to a reliable source.
But this was not always the case, of course; sometimes journalists did not have access to accurate information or were prevented from disseminating it.
World Press Freedom Day was celebrated yesterday. And we learned that many professionals are coerced and risk their integrity just to try to do their jobs.
As traditional forms of journalism have changed, it has become increasingly difficult to verify their accuracy.
Government pressure and political pressure are all too evident these days. Political leaders attribute completely unrealistic characteristics to journalists, accusing them of dishonesty and lying.
But why is this the case? Why don’t we try to find out what is actually happening, and why do we so often believe in a reality that we think is “our” reality?
This phenomenon occurs not merely out of ignorance or even arrogance alone. There is a personal belief system that creates an internal system of coherence for us. We believe in certain values, ideas, or even religions that impose certain internal conditions upon us, through which we unconsciously evaluate everything we see and read.
When we are exposed to information or something that contradicts our belief system, our mind does not react by doubting what it already takes for granted. The exact opposite happens. That information, image, or news is viewed by “us” as something that causes cognitive dissonance. And as such, paradoxically, it ends up reinforcing our previous ideas.
Let’s think about what happened during the pandemic. A lot of contradictory information was circulating. Certainly, not all of it was entirely true. Much of it was presented as fact, even though it hadn’t even been tested yet. There hadn’t been time for that.
What effect did this spread of information have on groups that didn’t believe in the development of a vaccine for such a recent infection? Exactly: an even stronger sense of skepticism, and the spread of ideas even more opposed to the healthcare system’s approach.
This brings us to a well-known quote by Heraclitus:
“Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become.”
Image by wal_172619 from Pixabay
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