Well in my personal experience dealing with something that was reported on the news, you really only get the surface portion of the story and more often than not, not what really happened. The Hudson landing was "splashed" (pun intended) all over the news for a few days, but the real story is what happened afterwards, and even what happened during the actual event was really just touched upon by the news stations. And that is what the problem is in this country, is that a good majority of the people get their information about thing off the headlines on their smart phone or the evening news and take that as absolute truth, when quite often it is far from it.
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee
Dan, you are so absolutely right! It actually depresses me to know so many Americans think they're "well informed" by the "news" readily available to us.
I worked with the Somali (Muslim) refugee community in 1996. And I often gathered with several of the men at midnight to listen to the BBC news on the radio; they considered our TV and radio news to be nothing more than “a series of 6-second sound bites”, if I remember the phrase correctly.
(And, a challenge to any of us who feel intellectually superior: I can almost guarantee you’ll be quite embarrassed should you decide to compare your knowledge of geography and history with that of an educated Somali. We Americans really do live in a shell …)
You should also know that year we had some violent confrontations with Militant Islamic Extremists in Minneapolis. At which time members of that community turned over to the Minneapolis Police the names of several individuals - living here - who they described as “Militant extremists well-financed by Mideast oil money”. We commonly referred to it as “The List of 57”; I was told it was later expanded and turned over to the FBI.
Muslims afraid of other Muslims.
Five (5) Years Before 9-11! But then you all know about that, right? I’m sure it was well-reported …
I’ve lived long enough, and perhaps seen enough turmoil at times and in places, to know that what we read and hear in our news is very “filtered” when it gets to us.
But
Tom Hanks is a major player in this discussion, so let’s quote his lines from the beginning of the movie
Radio Flyer, where he plays the part of a father speaking to his sons, who are arguing over a radio-controlled model airplane:
“History is all in the mind of the teller. Truth is all in the telling.”Frankly, I don’t put much stock in our “news”. To be informed today requires more effort than listening to sound bites.
Dennis