Why the news is violent

And not for the reasons you think

It took decades for me to cut the cord but I’ve finally done it.

I’ve started 2023 consciously avoiding ‘the news’ and the sensationalist rhetoric it routinely delivers under the thinly veiled mask of objectivity. My only exception is when a news story directly relates to my line of work – where the issues discussed (typically around foreign policy) have tangible implications on specific projects. Either way, there is hubris in thinking that reality could ever be told objectively, furthering our collective delusion of mistaking information for truth and meaning. We’re inundated with information and yet face a worrying scarcity of wisdom.

But beyond the above, the news, in all of its eclectic genres, is horrendously violent.

I’m not referring to the explicit headlines and painful visuals of victims that are emblazoned the front pages of the daily tabloids each time a bomb goes off annihilating blameless lives. I’m not talking about the public outcry that resonates through the deafened ears of failed intelligence and faith in the state’s law and order. Nor the anonymous visages covered with black rags who are photographed outside the courtroom, readied for trial procedures, which may go on for months, maybe even years. I’ve zero interest in the subsequent analytical carnival that proceeds every societal tragedy – one that is spearheaded by commentators who pontificate on how the human mind (typically of the perpetrator) can be so malicious and calculating and yet portray an affluent, composed and erudite exterior. These supposed kaleidoscopic revelations are engineered to provoke rather than engage.

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Πηγή: waitjustlisten.substack.com