Elder Advice – Thinking Inside the Box -Week 12
“Consider the Source.” I first heard that as a boy. I had made the mistake of questioning whether a statement in one of my father’s innumerable articles in The Toronto Star was factual. He stopped hammering the keys of his portable typewriter momentarily – fixed me with a glare which offered all the warmth of the winter sun glinting off the brass handles of a coffin – and said: “Consider the Source”.
It is advice I have recalled with increasing frequency, as the times have become increasingly peculiar. And I am talking now about prehistoric times – you know, B.C. – Before COVID – like 2000. Since then, people have routinely spent more time on social media than socializing with their spouses. Repeating drivel, pseudo-science and patent nonsense they heard or read on the internet superhighway – where facts are roadkill. It was bad enough when that fact-free field was occupied only by Holocaust deniers and antivaxxers. Social media algorithms began to show and tell users only what they want to hear, from sources ranging from completely fictional all the way to thoroughly misleading. Emotional resonance over evidence. Thumb sucking over thinking. And the deplorable public reaction? Social media became the primary source of information for the majority of alleged adults.
It was heartening to see, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, that everyone seemed again to become true believers in fact and science. And that perhaps people might grasp the elemental concept that “social” media is not to be confused with actual media. But the conversion was short lived, clearly tied to people’s perpetual self-interest and initial fear that their own lives were at risk. And now that the crisis appears to have dissipated, we are moving back to pre-pandemic normal. With the speed of Prince Andrew’s pulse when asked about Jeffrey Epstein. Back to a place where the idiots dust off and rehang their University of Google degrees.
I had the privilege to grow up in a house which had three newspapers delivered to it, every day – The Star, the Tely and the Globe. The ink-stained wretches of each rigorously separated fact from opinion, and also backed their opinions with facts. It was important to be well-informed. Which is different from fancying yourself well-informed. I recall taking a University course 45 years ago, aptly titled: “Propaganda, Rhetoric and Logic” and thinking then that it should be taught in every high school.
But people do not need to have had the advantages I did to ensure their sources of information are reliable. We can all look all this shit up, you know. Virtually everyone has a device in their pocket which - as I have suggested previously - has the sum total of human knowledge on it. Identifying the credentialed, reliable sources of information on any subject – government, hospital and professional associations, reputable universities – is admittedly time consuming but not impossible. And that includes any modest cross-checking effort consequent on the regrettable, but sometimes legitimate, decline in reliability of public institutions. Just alert your thumbs to the fact that a few more clicks will be required.
Or you can simply identify credentialed, reliable media to do that work for you ... The Globe, The Agenda, The BBC, The NY Times, Buzzfeed, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Economist. You know, places that house real journalists – not like Kermit and Gonzo in The Great Muppet Caper. Check out the Poynter Institute site for guidance on news media literacy in the era of alternative facts. But do it now. Because, while the Rome of journalists is burning, the federal government refuses to prioritize the legislation properly taxing Google, Facebook Twaddle – sorry, Twitter, on their advertising activities in Canada, and use the revenue to support real media. Because all the sources of real journalism are under financial attack. Because those which are not shuttering are all being contorted into “multi-platform content distribution network systems”, which sounds awesome, and is uniformly awful.
Elder Advice? First and foremost, fall in love with aeroplane mode. Be the Doctor, as in: Doctor, you gotta help me! I'm addicted to Social Media! Doctor: I don't follow you. Second, think of print media as retro and cool, and read some. Regularly. Third, when you are on line, believe nothing said by those without actual credentials in the relevant field. Assume that every undisclosed source cited by those without those credentials is the drugs they are on. And, whether you are on or off line, remember that the work of those who adhere to codes of journalistic ethics - who seek only knowledgeable sources, who draft and redraft, who relentlessly fact check and, who believe in science - is infinitely better than the work of those who do not. The uncovering of facts and the pursuit of truth is hard work. It is worth your money to support those who engage in it. And your time to dispassionately sort through it, draw supportable conclusions, and act accordingly.
And while you are doing that, I will amuse myself by completing the list of things we should all avoid, even when the need for physical distancing ends. So far: tofu, everyone with the last name “Khardashian”, chronic victims, demineralized water, the self-absorbed, people who wear white lab coats who are not doctors or scientists, clam chowder popsicles, and leaving things unsaid…