These words from Bob Schieffer bring to the table several topics for debate. One topic could be the validation and accuracy of the information. Another one could be the access to the data, and there is where we are going to stay. The fact that information is being accessed from different platforms around the world in a way that we did not have before.
What is important is to understand what does a person mean by News when mentioning that word. I know this is hard to define, but what is clear; again, is that the information is there: on the Web, newspapers, magazines, television, etc, and some called journalists (and others) filter the data and present it to the public as so called news (or any other thing).
The French writer Guy Debord wrote a book called La Société Du Spectacle (The Society of the Spectacle) in which he explains how media works with information to maintain a certain status quo. One of the thesis is that, in a consumer society, social life is not about living, but about having. Media this way rely on information and images to convey what people NEED and MUST HAVE. Consequently, social life moves from a state of “having” into a state of “appearing”.
Are we informed about the issues around the world? Are we being misinformed? I think both. We can be misinformed and informed depending on the media we consume or the validations we put in place. In the end, I believe there is an individual responsibility to deep dive and investigate what is of one’s interest and, of course, no one can judge what one’s interests should or should not be.
By Fernando Aguilar @fjaguilarr
