Another Not-So-Objective Look at the American Socio-Political Climate

So I mentioned that I would read a political commentary by someone who's political views are opposite of mine. While I found the book interesting, I have some other. more choice (but no nasty) thoughts on it. Reading books like this are supposed to be educational, and this was enlightening in some regards. I will try to focus on more general negatives and point out the few positives I got from reading this.

Patterson's general introduction gives examples of how Americans have become disenfranchised with the political process, and has led to our current political arena. Needless to say, he makes the case that this disenfranchisement has been growing and came to a head in 2016 with 2 lousy candidates as frontrunners.

He claims that modern American politics has become so incendiary that it has trickled over to the abuse of the press, and that it's difficult for journalists like himself to actually report news because of how politicians behave and how 2 polarized groups of Americans ' views on any one piece of news varies tremendously, and is interpreted flagrantly. While I agree with the general conclusion, that politicians behave badly, I would argue with Patterson that he is using that as a scapegoat to not address the problems with his own disgusting profession: that journalists, especially ones like himself, are a large cause of the current political divide, and it is less people's interpretations of the poor journalism, it's the poor journalism itself that fuels rage, intolerance, and perpetuates sociocultural divides.

Patterson argues that politicians need to be nicer to the press and be willing to be honest with the media. He heavily indicts President Trump for his incendiary way of handling the press, and perhaps rightfully so. However, he neglects to address the facts that journalism has gradually shifted away from objective reporting to now partisan, hate-mongering. While he agrees that this occurs, he blames it on the adversarial way in which politicians approach journalists. Ironically, he seems to completely fail to see (and who isn't surprised, because Patterson is a modern journalist, after all) that the modern journalistic approach is sub par, lazy ,sloppy, and poor. He would condemn the opinion I just espoused by saying 'It's people like you with your negative attitude toward journalism that has caused this" Another argument he makes is that government is dysfunctional (or at least viewed that way) because the American populice on both sides of the spectrum have labeled the government as dishonest and adversarial and the press has largely created this, while he contends that journalists like himself and journalistic institutions they work for actually are not. The irony there is that we have a journalist calling the people who view journalism as dishonest and untrustworthy as people who don't want to use reason and logic and who don't look at facts as untrustworthy. See the irony of his argument?

Now, I don't want to go too far without making my 1 political point about this book. Do you see the irony in his statement? Most people say: "Journalists lie." Patterson argues: "No we don't, we want to report the news." Most people then say: "See, there you go again." It seems to me to be a zero sum game, and he proves this point about how journalists lie, by making assanine and untruthful claims: Some of his claims largely have to do with lies people believe that journalists have reported on. A few of the more poignant topics on his list of conspiracy theories are as follows: 1. People believe global warming is a hoax. But then avoids discussing how the numbers have been cooked based on computer models. 2. That people believe 9/11 was an inside job. But then doesn't give any investigative journalistic proof that it wasn't. 3. That people believed that a muslim raped a Caucausian-American girl in Idaho Falls, and claimed that it was unsubstantiated, which is obviously a lie, because they convicted 3-4 muslims for doing it.

There are copious other examples of events he believes are lies set forth on the populice that journalists have diligently tried to fight against, or to fight for the truth, but again, the sad, laughable, and disgusting irony of all this is that it's coming from a guy that works in a profession that has proven to lie to people, attempting to set the record straight in book about how he and his ilk don't lie. First off, how ironic is that, and secondly, didn't he realize that by writing the book accusing people of not believing journalists is dishonest, and that people don't believe journalists is a bad thing, to a thinking, rational person, further confirms their suspicion that journalists lie? Anyway, he finally advocates that we need to de-polarize our social and political views and let journalists objectively report on facts and info and then use their reporting to decide what to do about the issues i.e. who to vote for, what to protest or how to handle different things, but again, he's predicating this on the fact that we should LISTEN to journalists because they are truthful. Again, the American people have had doubts about the media on the left and the right, in fact, ironically, it's the one place that we all agree on, that the media spins things and has biases. So are you actually trying to say that one of the few things that libs, conservatives, moderates, and independents agree on, that news is self-serving, fake, right-wing, left-wing, and that it's divisive --everyone agrees on this--you're saying that's where we're really wrong? Anyway, interesting read to an extent, but it did further prove to me that I should have doubts about journalists and the reporting they do, whether it be a liberal or a conservative.