Every once in a while, I try to emulate the majority of my classmates by actually following current events. But despite my valiant effort to watch CNN and Fox News this week, I am not significantly more knowledgeable about the issues that affect the world than I would be if I had spent the time sleeping.
I admit, I learned a few things: Bahrain sort of has three syllables, and as long as it’s close, you can spell “Gaddafi” however you please. Amidst the ever-present Twitter feeds and fancy touch screens employed by the news anchors, however, I failed to learn what Gaddafi’s latest move was, what exactly was happening in Bahrain, or where Bahrain actually is in the Middle East.
I understood that the flashy visuals and unending updates were what ensured that people would actually watch CNN. People don’t want to see in-depth analysis of the Middle East crisis when they can be watching Robin Meade tinker with what is apparently a 3-D visual of the latest air-strike. Though I think cable news has changed to appease a culture with a diminishing attention span, it doesn’t bother me, both because it has entertainment value, but mostly because I don’t watch it that often.
Nevertheless dejected, I turned to online content, assuming that those who were serious about being informed did not do so by watching The O’Reilly Factor or The Situation Room. On the CNN homepage, I read the first article I saw on Bahrain, coming across phrases like “continuing protests” and “ongoing conflict.” I wasn’t looking for a Wikipedia entry on the entire crisis, but some information, at most a paragraph, to contextualize the protests and conflict would have made the article worth reading for me. Instead, I felt more unaware than I had already been.
The MSNBC Twitter page was also disappointing, albeit more expectedly. All the major news sources use Twitter’s, and yet often words cannot be spelled correctly because it would render the message too long for Twitter 140-character limit. Though each tweet contains a link to a story, I already know that even the complete story will offer incomplete information.
I have come to the conclusion that, with the exception of the major newspapers, no news sources report stories anymore—only updates. These updates, however, are useless unless the reader has read every preceding update about the issue. An update only helps if you have basic knowledge, and Twitter updates from CNN don’t provide that.
And unfortunately for the fight against ignorance, the popularity of Twitter has influenced the way people want news, and thus, the way news sources will report it, resulting in the short, shallow, and constant reports on television and online.
There’s an assumption that because of Twitter, and even Facebook, everyone is attuned to current events. News is available everywhere now, and unless you actively ignore your surroundings, phone, or computer, there should be no reason to not be informed. But this information is disjointed, requiring further research for full understanding, and because of our generation’s shrinking attention span, I don’t think this research occurs.
Twitter, and the style of reporting it now inspires, is often hailed as having the ability to spread information around the world in only a second. I concede that it was perhaps the most important source of information during the Egypt riots, as official foreign correspondents were being arrested and detained.
But major news sources cannot use Twitter as a model. Ultimately, it will limit knowledge, because of the burden of linking together updates for a full story. This burden may prove too heavy for some, especially those not familiar with the Twitter model.
In hindsight, I ought to have gone immediately to The New York Times for the sort of coverage I had in mind. In fact, the Times was the only source I found to have reported Tuesday being the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, complete with in-depth analysis. But even the Times is progressing, complete with its own Twitter and video feed, leaving me in the dust. Perhaps it’s time I change to embrace the progress, and succumb to the #inevitable.
