A Liberal
Dose
January 12,
2023
Troy D.
Smith
“Today’s
news or yesterday’s history, learn to read between the lines”
In recent weeks, John Gottlied has used his column, not only
to encourage readers to think for themselves, but to be more discerning when
evaluating news and social media. He has made some very good points about
social media using algorithms to channel to users the news media that will
buttress their own preconceptions. This has resulted in most of us walking
around in our own echo chamber, with a completely different set of “facts” from
those folks with whom we disagree. I was struck by John’s encouragement for us
all to question WHY news and social media items are structured the way they
are, and want to speak to that now.
I do my best to train history majors to interpret historical
documents (like newspapers, for example). It is often necessary to be able to
read between the lines if you are to move beyond the “what” and “how” and get
to the “why.” This requires both critical thinking skills and familiarity with
context, and it applies equally to today’s news (which will be tomorrow’s
history). I often use two 21st century phenomena to demonstrate my
point.
First: missing or murdered young women. Those few words
alone embody unimaginable tragedy. From time to time a case will get national
attention and the media will seem to talk about nothing else for days or weeks.
We’ve all seen it. What do those cases have in common? It is always young white
women. Plenty of non-white women suffer the same fate, but don’t make it on
CNN. So is it about race? Well… large numbers of young white women are killed
each year who may live in a trailer park, or work at Walmart or McDonald’s, and
sometimes they don’t even make the news in their own town. It is young, white,
middle-to-upper-class women who are given 24-hour news coverage. Again, no
matter WHO it is, it is a terrible tragedy. But the fact is, most of that news
media -especially on television -is supported by ad revenue. It is a vehicle to
get you to watch commercials, with the goal of selling you something. Most of
their audience is white, and from among that audience the ones they want glued
to the TV are the ones with expendable income that might buy their stuff.
Missing children who could have been THEIR children -that is going to compel
them to watch.
Second: Native Americans protesting pipelines near their
reservations, which could endanger their water supply. There are several such
protests going on right now -have you heard about them? Probably not. The
biggest such event happened in 2016, at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in
North Dakota. There were more Native Americans assembled together in one place
since Custer’s Very Bad Day (seriously). That particular pipeline was supposed
to go near Bismarck, but the citizens there were against it so it was rerouted
along the edge of the reservation, passing beneath the tribe’s only water
supply. Militarized police forces from all over the state were mobilized, and
there were countless incidents of violence against the peaceful protesters.
This went on for months. I was seeing it every day on the social media feeds of
my indigenous friends, and on Native news outlets. But not one word from the
news networks… until the very end, when many reported that the Natives had
“provoked” the police into using force against them. Why was it not in the news
the whole time -Fox, CNN, MSNBC, anywhere? Because there are not that many
indigenous viewers, and they don’t have much money, but oil companies provide
enormous amounts of ad revenue to all those stations.
If national news or social media is inundating you with
something -or, sometimes, hiding something from you -someone, somewhere is
trying to sell you something (or, in the latter case, make sure you keep on
buying it).
Read between the lines.
--Troy D.
Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at
Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.
You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE
A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE
Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com
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