Understanding news vs. opinion
Matt Pearl
A difficult boundary to protect in our minds, a line which we challenge when we read the various political views competing for support in this country, is that between being informed and being persuaded.
You and I claim to want our news informative: “Don’t tell me how to think, I just want the facts, and then I’ll form my own opinions.” That’s all good and fine, but the separation between the two is a difficult line to maintain for any media agency.
Especially since most of us, whether we be print, radio, television or online, offer opinion sections that contain the personal beliefs of members of our editorial staff, or of guest writers with points to make. The line between news and opinions gets blurred — but there’s no excuse for it, really.
To illustrate my point, I’ll use an issue that commonly draws opinion writing, global warming/climate change. A few weeks ago, I criticized the government for changing the phenomenon’s names, presumably to sell the crisis to skeptics more readily. What concerns me is that the opposing “sides” are distracting from the news story: February 2016 was the warmest February globally in the history of such measurements.
That’s the story. Enter the pundits:
The far Right: The global temperature naturally fluctuates over time. We can’t use a month, a year, a decade of climate data to make rash decisions based on science we don’t even fully understand.
The far Left: The fact that we’re still burning coal and oil with such a crisis looming is a reflection on our failure as a society to embrace facts and science as a guide to direct our actions as a race.
But that data just said February was warmer than it’s supposed to be. Those were the facts. How we respond to this information takes a little more thought than what the opinion pushers disguised as news anchors give us.
From what I read, those who hold the greatest concern for the risks of global warming and its effects think anything short of a system to totally eliminate the use of fossil fuels is not enough. You and I know that’s not going to happen — Greenland could melt before folks would stop using these energy sources.
That fact that you and I aren’t going to stop using gas, oil, coal, etc., however, cannot lead us to the conclusion that, since mankind needs these fuels, they must be good and harmless.
That’s pretzel logic, like saying that since many people get the flu every year that it doesn’t really make anybody sick.
What’s a reasonable response? Wind energy is clean, but a boxcar full of coal can outwork it while the coal supply lasts. Solar is great: but storing it, like most alternative energy sources, poses a problem. That doesn’t mean it will be that way forever, but we have to survive in the present, and for now these sources couldn’t replace fossil fuels.
My point is not to have the final say on climate change: I don’t. Rather, I want to make it clear that news outlets forcing us to choose whether or not global warming exists based upon how willing we are to accept the consequences is complete folly. But it’s our way as a race.
They print right on the pack of cigarettes what they will do to you, and yet new smokers put cash on the counter daily. We are creatures who often lack the desire to make our decisions look forward, preferring the familiarity and safety of the present.
When will we see meaningful change related to global warming (if we ever do)?
Either when disasters begin, or there’s money to be made in creating the solution.
