Yet another day has passed me by, and honestly speaking, with the lack of a direction of what exactly to do, I've slowly lapsed into a state of ire. While on the one hand I am glad to have the chance to actually take a break of sorts from the hustle and bustle, on the other hand I realised that I actually miss the whole shebang of actually being busy.
Perhaps my defining moment about life is that of being in a constant state of business, always having to do one item after another, meeting each deadline as they arrive? That I cannot truly tell, but perhaps a few anecdotes might show the direction that I'm leaning towards.
In general, I tend to like lurking in the background and working on things that way. Once upon a time, I was one who was always glad of the limelight, and would somehow manage to end up in positions where the spotlight would be on me, all in the good sense of the word of course. But as time went on and I starting to see how the world is, I realised that perhaps it was wholly unnecessary of me to try to be in the limelight all the time; lurking in the background and being humble can take my much further, because I can learn more due to my unobtrusive nature. One must be really sure of one's abilities in order to be able to take the limelight, for once one is there, seeking help will become a really difficult thing to do, because of the whole issue of pride and the light in which people sees one.
The spark that I once had while younger, has evolved into a steady flame that burns steadily against the strong winds. I might not have that kind of exuberance like when I was only a child, but I'm pretty certain that the determination and enthusiasm that I had then is still with me, albeit in a different form. Perhaps I had said this before, but I think it'd be good to say it again—I'm not fighting for myself, I'm not travelling through time to see the world for myself, I'm doing it for the people who believe in me. Does this mean that I believe in myself too? Perhaps, but in my mind, that is something that I ask myself only sporadically. Why worry about something that you don't really know how to start answering? Why not look at the things that you know, and figure out some greater truth from there?
[Ed: I just realised that I had written an earlier post lambasting mass media some time back. Talk about a genuine and consistent dislike of this group of folks.]
On a wholly unrelated note, I'm not too fond of the mass media in general. There's something about the concept of a "scoop" that does not sit well with me. In the bid to obtain the best "scoop", madd media companies and freelance folks have resorted to questionable practices, like stalking their targets, or even harassing them through their insistent questioning techniques, and sometimes even haranguing in public just to be able to evoke an emotional outburst to be able to make that "scoop". There is no news media that is exempt from this act, from traditional print media to those based on the Internet. This is all an issue about human psychology and perception.
That's why I refuse to read newspapers nowadays, because I simply do not condone such acts of invasion towards a person's privacy and rights.
We ought to get this straight with ourselves: media companies are not our defenders of rights and liberties; the folks who are going to fight for our rights are those who are willing to go to court to contest the issues that we find to be uncomfortable over. Media companies have only one aim in their existence; it is the same aim as all other companies, and it is to make a profit. Technically, they might have an obligation to report the truth, but practically, there is no real provision towards reporting the truth in a completely unbiased manner, or even to report the truth for that matter. Media companies will report whatever they can get away with, and the more outrageous the report they can provide, the better their sales and thus the better their profits. Which brings us to my original grouse of reporters doing anything to get themselves the "scoop".
I watch with disgust on some of the ways in which reporters carry themselves. Instead of treating their interviewee as a person, they treat them as some kind of prisoner, and end up asking very prying questions or asking in ways that are not polite at all. These forms of treatment extend beyond your average citizen—they are employed even on important people like the leaders of a country, or even celebrities. Another related issue is the reporters' general "know-it-all" attitude. The sad thing about it is that like many things related to news and media in general, misrepresentations of actual information gets used a lot. Some classic examples include the perversion of the word "hacker" and the "Anonymous" hacker group. It's ridiculous to the point of pure disgust. Just watch the video clip that I linked to and observe how the presenters make everything sound legitimate and completely correct, when reality is far more different.
What do these all show? The target of the news media is not to inform the public, but to make the public feel informed. There's a subtle difference there: if the objective is to inform the public, then more can be done in terms of actually obtaining better accuracy and to seek expert opinions on the matters at hand, and not to just blabber about something with that "know-it-all" tone when the fact is that they don't really know what they are talking about. However, through the various techniques that one observes in the presentation of news reports, it can be seen that informing the public is rarely the key objective (unless it is some government sponsored public message), the news media provides just enough truth to gain some legitimacy, and then fudges the rest to make it "sensational".
Oh right, I almost forgot about that word, "sensational". If a story is not "sensational", then it will not be a part of the news. Thus, normal pickpocket cases hardly appears in the news, unless of course if someone really big and famous gets pickpocketted. This is what I think academic circles call "selection bias", i.e. to only select stories that best toe the "official line".
Alright, I'm getting sick of bashing the mass media companies. Hopefully, the audience that they are earning their money off can be educated enough to understand that not all sources of information seek to inform them, and to always seek objectivity as the basis of learning about what is going on in the world. Someone did say, "Comments are free, but facts are sacred." Now, if only those news folks would remember that adage.
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