How’s this year’s general election shaping up for your news and talk radio ratings? It has to be a barn burner, right? At 81, Joe Biden has the dubious distinction of being the oldest sitting president in our nation’s history. A lot of people think he’s goofy and losing his mind. Donald Trump will be 78 on election day and many voters believe he’s a dangerous loose cannon who belongs in prison for treason.
Two of the most polarizing presidents in history are facing off for a second time. Are these our country’s best and brightest? In a proud free nation of one-third of a billion people, these guys are the best we can come up with? Apart from Biden and Trump haters and supporters Americans in the political middle, plus some on both sides, wonder how we got to this point.
We got to this point through insults, by pressing each other’s emotional hot buttons. Pointing a finger at social media is easy, it’s a conveniently anonymous flashpoint that provides fuel for unthinking rage but what fuels social media? Questionable news and hostile broadcast opinions. Social media merely provides a list of trending topics that we in radio take up to fan the flames. And buddies, we have a big, powerful fan.
People are depressed and pissed off. Is talk radio the bad guy? Of course we are, we’re a big part of the festering problem.
Findings from a recent study at the University of Michigan aren’t surprising: political anger and cynicism are created by constant exposure to confrontational attacks on all mass communications platforms.
Another survey reported in October 2023 by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 52% of Americans believe the country’s best days are behind us and nearly 25% agree with the following statement: “True American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”
If those findings aren’t shocking enough, buckle up for this one:
A study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found partisan politics and biased reporting have thoroughly baffled almost half of Americans who now struggle to distinguish fact from opinion.
Digest that for a moment. Half of us admit we can’t even tell the difference between fact and opinion.
Co-author of the Illinois research, Jeffery J. Mondak, professor of political science and the James M. Benson Chair in Public Issues and Civic Leadership explains, “What we’re showing here is that people have trouble distinguishing factual claims from opinion, and if we don’t have this shared sense of reality, then standard journalistic fact-checking – which is more curative than preventative – is not going to be a productive way of defanging misinformation.”
Mondak continues, “How can you have productive discourse about issues if you’re not only disagreeing on a basic set of facts, but also disagreeing on the more fundamental nature of what a fact itself is?”
People are confused, angry, and cynical.
Is it talk radio’s fault? Yes, but not entirely, not by a long shot. Talk radio and other traditional media are constantly exploited by slick professional manipulators of public opinion who operate at every level of political influence from the White House Press Secretary down to your local school district’s media department. Newspaper, TV and radio editors, writers, producers, and talk hosts are flooded with information enticing them to make news by breaking it. So-called experts are quoted and offered as sources. Fighting for daily survival and recognition broadcast media are offered a smorgasbord of tantalizing fake news and biased opinions.
My fellow Americans, we need to talk.
When this election is over, after we’ve inaugurated a president we don’t like and can’t trust, we need to have a long, soul-searching national conversation about our beliefs, dreams, and values because we, The People, have lost control of our personal lives and collective future to those who want them more than we do.
We are the problem.
We’ve fallen asleep at the wheel. We’ve gotten too cynical and lazy to study American history and civics, to understand them, why they matter, and explain it all to our children.
When issues of substance do come up in conversation we’re not armed with enough information to think, much less argue. We stake positions based on memes and likes.
All we can muster is an exchange of childish insults.
We’ve decided that symbolic gestures of support, such as buying a magnetic car ribbon of a particular color equals the personal time investment required for passionate advocacy.
We see our lives as we view the TV shows that mesmerize us and send us to bed each night stressed yet unconcerned with what happens next because we’ll find out when we tune in tomorrow.
The system is fine. It has worked very well for more than 200 years.
We, The People, aren’t doing our part.
We’ve gotten lazy, ignorant, and fearful of big-world stress and disagreement. We’ve gone from believing everything we’re told, which is easy, to believing nothing at all because that’s easier, still.
And now we dare to complain.
Seriously, we need to talk. And the conversation has to start on the air.
