Editor,
In re: “Reliable news,” Mr. Simon, what a generous discussion, one that cannot be summarized here. However, I will address you: When analyzing news I look past a media’s product — I stare at the heart of its agency, its business model. How does a paper, magazine, the 10 o’clock news or cable television get its grist? In that analysis lies a series of further questions: Who is the targeted audience? What are the ethics of that business? Where do I fit in with that business model?
Yet, this analysis is irrelevant in terms of a daily reader in print. The real issue lies at the heart of our societal changes: the decade’s full adjustment to technological invasiveness. How does chronic mendaciousness become mainstream? Remove time for thought, activate e-devices (idiot boxes) 24/7 and watch thought dwindle away worse than a man on heroin. And to its effects: blue light to disrupt a good night’s sleep (necessary for serotonin and cortisol development), unawareness of time passing, expectation for immediate gratification and addressment, short-term memory loss and an encouraging anti-social communicative behavior. Independently, this generates a stew for a wandering social sphere of echo chambers and hive-mind “influencers” that go about nullifying rationality. Yet, these inducements are part and parcel of the societal stagnation triggered by globalization and unaddressed labor issues. Galvanized, truant opportunists and extremists bridling the oppressed’s lamented energy was what triggered Jan 6’s events; yet undergirding these followers in perverse infamy, an impetus (and harbinger). End the corruption.
Kenneth Lustenberger
Burlingame
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(1) comment
We could start with ending the one party corruption of Democrat politicians Sacramento that prevents us from solving any of our major problems.
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