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When you digest news, do you ever feel as if you are being experimented on, manipulated, told what to think? Know anyone, maybe even someone you love, who you think has changed, and not for the better, because of their news consumption? Do you ever feel like the media is deliberately making us feel angry, worried, anxious?
Episode 74 host Mary Scott Hunter calls out the media and leads a conversation around the way media can make us feel that the world is coming apart at the seams.
During the show, we play a clip from The Morning Show where Reese Witherspoon’s character, reporter Bradley Jackson, loses her cool at a coal mine protest and counter-protest. Bradley is a reporter who’s fallen on hard times. She really wants to be a journalist and, in her own words, “On the side of people” bringing all sides of a story to light. But she’s not being allowed to do that, and you will hear her scream some words that you might have wanted to scream a few times yourself. Bradley’s cameraman has been knocked to the ground and his camera knocked down with him by a protester. The scene is utter chaos. At the end of her rage, Bradley screams “I’m exhausted!”
After listening to the clip, we discuss our own exhaustion with media, the seemingly never-ending cycles, the need for there to always be an “enemy” and how damaging this is for productive dialogue and problem-solving.
We also talk about our own methods we have found to ingest news in ways that are efficient and informative and as devoid of opinion as possible. We offer some tips for mentally triaging the news.
Resources mentioned:
Wall Street Journal News Podcast “WSJ What’s News”
