A Little Dusty but.....

When you've written as much in this space as I have, for as long as I have,every once in a while, you rediscover a nugget from the past that still makes sense to you. In light of present political circumstances, this one surprised even me. 
At the time, I called it: 

How Do You Figure the Tip on the Bill of Rights?

When the Founding Fathers, assisted by others, created the Bill of Rights (and this is a marvelous site), they could not have foreseen the world in which we now live. 

For them, freedom of speech, and within that, 'the press', was a matter of newspapers and broadsides (one-sheet exhortations and excoriations on behalf of and in opposition to issues of Colonial America). 

That a growing number of people would choose to get their news from TikTok rather than what an aging boomer like me calls 'trad media,' is more than disquieting. 

We choose 'rock, paper, scissors' on where to turn and tune in for news and information. Truisms are often truths, and perceptions of reality are frequently reality. What we call news, no matter the presentation format, now does more persuasion and less informing today than ever before because advocacy draws better ratings than reporting. 

I can no longer define 'journalist,' hell, most of the time I can't even recognize one while wandering around things like YouTube. But I am chagrined to discover I can't swing a cat and NOT hit self-styled one on whatever platform I choose. Anyone with a keyboard and an Internet connection is a journalist (present typist included), it seems. And then we wonder why there's so much 'fake news.'.  

Most pander to audience 'segments' as long as those segments buy the products those platforms and messages are supported by, from the advertisers who bought them because the demographics deliver certain groups in large numbers.....and round goes the gossip. A self-licking ice cream cone.

You must get as tired reading it as I get tired typing it: the issues we face can't be captured in a seventy-second story with a ten-second stand-up location lock-out. They require our fullest attention, no matter our political beliefs (as a matter of fact, precisely because of our political beliefs). 

Not just Democrats or liberals require health care, and not just Republicans or conservatives are taxed too much. And people who feel that way or who feel differently don't come from another dimension or drink their bath water (or any of the other insults we manufacture when we disagree with each other). The farther out in space you travel, the more we all look alike down here. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
-bill kenny