As a reminder that a lot goes on in the world, whether we are aware of it or not; a friend reacted in horror earlier today, learning of the latest serious situation going on in the Middle East. It was pointed out to me that many, if not most news outlets in the U.S. are distracted by the goings on in Washington and that this (our big distraction) has been going on for quite some time and that other situations, like Gaza or Africa or Europe (minus the NATO episode) were going largely unreported, or taking serious backseats or nanosecond reports to revelations from the White House.
I have often expressed a sense of anger and bafflement that, despite the preponderance of 24 hour news outlets, not much in the way or world news makes it to our TVs – unless we are fortunate enough to have outlets like BBC World News or TV5 in Paris at our disposals to stay on top of the the lesser-flashy but no less important stories which stand a good chance of impacting our lives.
And that is not a good thing – for all the talk about isolation, it is no longer a viable concept, nor has it really been one for several decades – as soon as radio made it possible to know what was going on in Tokyo roughly the same time as people were able to hear about it in New York, the world got smaller. And the faster the lines of communication and the technology became, the more instant we became potentially aware of what was going on.
Before the days of streaming and viral video, news stories took days, if not weeks, to make their impact felt over here. But now it’s instant – and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (among so many others) does not have a gestation period before people are able to find out. But today it’s a question of access – where, in your dizzying choice of useless channels do you get useful news and factual information? That’s the tricky part.
Below are a few video examples of what’s been going on in the world just the past two days. Aside from Gaza there is a situation in Malia. The shift to the political right in Spain. A scandal brewing in the Macron Presidency. A lot going on; some of it slightly reported and some of it not reported at all.
Adding video is a new thing here – I’m a big fan of audio-only because I think you can get more information by way of words (in news) than dodgy footage. But I’m trying this today to see if it works.
If it does, Past Daily may be adding video to the mix . . .maybe.
Stay tuned – but in the meantime check out what you might have missed this week:
https://youtu.be/vwbxR4Bx2mg
Most of it is covered in the New York Times but the outrage in Gaza sometimes seems to be covered up.
I don’t think the problem has been with print media (although the pages are becoming smaller and the content is becoming slimmer), it’s the 24 News channels that have all the access but none of the interest. And unfortunately, that’s what’s shaping the conversation – time was, newspapers and magazines gave background and in-depth on stories. To a degree, that’s still true, but the audience has left in search of the more immediate – and that’s the worrisome part. Despite all the access to information, we are still in desperate need of useful information. And for that, I’m not giving up reading NYT or WAPO or The Economist.
I like the current news posts, I wish I could download the video clips to watch later.. Thanks for all the posts of vintage newscasts, such as radio broadcasts from eighty years ago. Wow.
That’s the problem I haven’t been able to work out yet. I’ll keep trying and hopefully something (software) will show up.
Thanks again!
Gordon