Jumat, 18 Mei 2018

Seeking The Truth With Arab News Sites

By Kathleen Fisher


The human mind is, by nature, intrinsically curious. It seeks information, craves it. To satisfy this need, man has often looked up and around the world at large. But not everyone can see all the wonder and devastation of the world firsthand with their own eyes. As such, there are those who must convey that information to the masses. Now, how this is conveyed varies. Arab news sites are one such source.

Being aware of the world makes a person more open minded, or at least makes it seem so. There was time when what was known was all that those in power wanted known. But the distribution of information became more egalitarian.

Town used to have criers, who would stand about in public and proclaim the news. Then the printing press was invented and mass literature became feasible, leading to the birth of newspapers. Then radio waves were harnessed, leading to radio broadcaster. Then there were the anchormen of television. But a new generation embraced a different medium, the internet.

There is no way to understate the importance of empathy, not just in journalism, but also in life. Empathy is the ability to understand the feelings or the emotions of another person. When delivering the bulletins, there must be some degree of empathy in order to fully understand a story. The objective truth provides only a surface level understanding of a story. Because people so often act out of emotion, being able to understand the underlying emotional cause of a story, paired with the objective truth, provides a deeper, more meaningful understanding of any narrative.

Newsmen can be split up into two camps, journalists and pundits. The latter often claims to be the former and the former is often accused of being the latter. The terms are so often used interchangeably, but the two are vastly different from each other even if there is some overlap. For starters, journalists seek out the truth, for a journalist, the objective is the truth. A pundit meanwhile cares more about a narrative, to make the audience lean a certain way, the truth is incidental to a pundit, the reaction of an audience is the objective.

All too often, stories get spread without facts being checked. When people share fake stories, it erodes trust, not just in the media institutions, but also in the world in general. Fake stories also perpetuate any ingrained prejudices that some people may already have.

There is an old saying in broadcast journalism, if it bleeds, it leads. This never more true than when dealing with reports coming out of the Arab world. Too often, the stories are about how some suicide bomber killed a bunch of people or about how military strike incurred significant civilian casualties. Yes, there is some truth to it. No, it is not the entirety of the truth.

Freedom is an important aspect in being a member of the press. Information must be freely pursued and freely distributed. Anything less than that is an assault on the truth.

Being skeptical of the news is a healthy enough habit, but being outright paranoid is not. News sources should be selected with some discrimination. Charlatans are everywhere, so be wary of them.




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