Msgr. Paul V. Garrity
Eric Sevareid, Walter Cronkite, and Harry Reasoner were the broadcast journalists that brought the news to America each night through the 1960s and ‘70s. Before CNN launched in 1980, these broadcasters dominated the airways on CBS, ABC, and NBC. Today, there are more than 100 cable news stations all vying for our attention and our dollars through their advertisements.
Before the explosion in cable news outlets, these trusted news anchors from the major networks helped to create a common knowledge base within our nation. The election and assassination of President Kennedy, the Vietnam War and anti-war demonstrations, and the resignation of President Richard Nixon all came to our attention without much editorial bias. What was going on in China, South America, and Africa got little attention unless there was an angle that directly impacted life in the United States. Severeid, Cronkite, and Reasoner created a certain homogeneity in the world of news and were regarded as reliable voices in America.
In 2024, a common knowledge base about current events is a thing of the past as many cable news stations unabashedly promote editorial opinion woven into the daily news. News channels that cater to a particular audience or people of a certain ideological bent now feed their constituents what they want to hear. This is a real chicken and egg conundrum. Do news channels create their own market or does the market create the news channel? Objectivity, if there really is such a thing, has been sidelined in the search for ratings and the desire to promote an editorial position.
In a nation of more than 300 million people, there are newsworthy things happening every day. The choice of what gets reported as news is both significant and subtle. If falling crime rates do not fit the prevailing narrative of one ideological position, they get ignored. At the same time, falling inflation data gets treated as the Second Coming of Jesus on another side of the socio-political spectrum. Awareness of this significant reality is nothing new to political junkies but may be missed by the plurality of citizens who are preoccupied with their day-to-day lives, in which traffic and weather are more important issues.
The way in which information about anything gets reported as news has never been more significant. The simple reason is that public policy usually follows public opinion. The shapers of public opinion, therefore, play an inordinately important role in our nation and in our world today. Climate change and the use of fossil fuels are currently in a political standoff as to which is going to drive decisions about the future.
In all of what is happening around us today, truth has become a major casualty. When Pilate asked Jesus what is truth, he put his finger on one of the greatest challenges of humanity. Was Jesus a savior or a criminal? Jerusalem was not sure. It is only through the hindsight of history that we are able to answer his question. Today, the search for what is true is as significant as it was when Jesus was sentenced to death.
For most of the history of the world, the vast majority of people were uneducated. In our day, the goal of universal education is unquestioned. What becomes contentious is the content of education. Propaganda is usually easy to spot. More subtle is the infiltration of the truth by editorial opinion. The origin of international law was the question as to whether Native Americans were subhuman savages or human beings like Europeans. Jim Crow laws taught some people that it was okay to lynch Black men. The content of education has become the battlefield for truth today.
A steady diet of potato chips and beer is not healthy. As good as a cold beer may taste and as satisfying as potato chips may be to the average palate, it does not take a doctorate in nutrition to understand that there are severe health consequences to this kind of a diet. When we think about what educates us today, it is increasingly important to make sure that we have a balanced diet. Joseph Goebbels, the Reich minister of propaganda under Adolf Hitler, famously said that if you shout a lie long enough and loud enough, you will begin to believe it yourself. Holocaust deniers and conspiracy theorists prove the truth of this assertion.
A frog in hot water will immediately jump out to preserve its life. A frog in water that is slowly heated up will eventually die. When false news, half-truths, and outright misleading information become anyone’s daily diet, the consequences are worse than a diet of beer and chips. The antisemitism of pre-war Germany led to the Holocaust of World War II. Many of the anti-vaxers died during the Covid pandemic as millions survived this modern plague because of good science and medication. Truth always has consequences. The opposite is also true. Lies that masquerade as truth are insidious. They can wreak all kinds of havoc and even bring down a democracy. The antidote is a balanced news diet that nurtures political and social health.
Msgr. Paul Garrity is a senior priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and former pastor at St. Mary’s Church in Lynn.