It's more about controversy/drama and less about consensus

I am not a huge fan of the mainstream media. The news in general is usually depressing, stories about car crashes, accidents, scandals, wars and about the kinds of mischief the celebrities are up to. Most of the news reported on TV is utter garbage. The only redeeming thing about the news is that sometimes, something important get reported on (like the crashing and burning US economy), but after that, you're better off on your own doing research to figure out what is really going on.

But for all controversies or crisis', the one thing I hate the most about the way current news is being reported is all of these so called "analysts" that come onto the show and have some kind of contrived debate for all of 5 to 10 minutes where the reporter pretends to ask superficially important seeming questions and have the analysts bash their heads against each other. The segment ends with no sort of consensus or any conclusion.

I would say that the whole point of the whole exercise is to "stir shit up." Complete and utter garbage in my not so humble opinion.

But this is pretty much what the whole news business is all about.

A Conflict of Interest

If there is anything good for news ratings, it all about controversy. The news could give less of a damn about coming to sound conclusions or justly educating their viewers.

The current US election cycle is a prime example of this phenomenon. I will disclose that I have positive bias to Obama, the Democratic candidate. Before the beginning of the election cycle and the exceptionally low approval ratings of the current administration (dipping to the 28% range!) it simply baffles me as to how can the current opinion polls between the Democrats and the Republicans sit fairly close to tied (with Obama with a slight lead).

The answer is simple-- the more dramatic and controversal the political news, the more views the news programs are going to have. If one of the candidates are 70%-30% in the opinion polls I can most certainly guarantee you that there is going to be far less intensity in the interest in political news as compared to a close 50%-50% split.

Current mainstream news reporting is not interested in thorough analysis or looking at information in an even handed manner. For example, looking back at the big controversy over Obama's "flag pin" issue during his run as Democratic party's presidential candidate, I would like to ask you as readers, was that controversy truly significant in the big scheme of things? I would answer that that the whole "flag pin" debaccle was irrelevant and neither Obama nor McCain wore a flag pin during their first debate last Friday. Yet, CNN and other news outlets actually went so far as to have "analysts" to come on to their show to actually debate whether if wearing or not wearing a flag pin on their suit is a sign of their patriotism for the country.

Seriously, what is the world coming to?

Perhaps I can illustrate my point using a different example.

Here's a billion (trillion) dollar question for you

What do you know about the sub-prime crisis? What are the terms of the bad mortgages that these people signed (general interest precenteges)? How many people took out these morgages? For the given interest rates, why were they too high?

Being honest, how many of these questions were you able to answer without looking anything up? If you're lucky, you might be able to answer 1 of them on the spot. But I highly doubt that any other questions can be answered without doing some real research.

The news has been spewing out to the general public for more than a year now about the sub-prime loan crisis and yet I find it particulaly hard to believe the general public does not have any tangible knowledge about the problem. I'll be honest myself, even I don't know how many people took out these loans off the top of my head from what I've seen from the news... over the past year!

I think this is utterly pathetic.

Why I've stopped caring about debates

I used to enjoy debating, but not anymore, especially after studying science and engineering.

Debating is less about coming to a consensus and far more about appearing to be "right" about whatever position that you're arguing for. This is the fundamental thing I dislike (ie. hate with a passion) about debates.

Debating automatically puts people into a defensive/offensive posture, where victory is making the most convincing argument. So what about the case if your position was wrong? Would you still try and argue that you are/were "right" to the ground? It is the nature of a debate that prevents people to admit that they were wrong and build a consensus.

Engineers and scientists don't debate. They may have unproven ideas and hypothesis', but the proof of everything comes out of the experiment, where everyone can do the experiment and everyone can come to the same result. I doesn't matter how right or wrong your idea seemed at the time, the only real thing that matters is if the results match up with your ideas.

The real recipe for progress in my humble opinion is far less about who does what, but rather about what gets done and I am afraid that this is a key point that few, if any politician understands. Compare the number of "political achievements" versus the number of "scientific/technological achievements" and their pervasive impacts on society, science and technology would win hands down. I believe that ought to say something about the difference between the "political vs scientific" process (and yes, I will admit that there is some "politics" in the scientific process, but far less compared to "normal" politics)... but I digress. So where were we... ah yes... about debates and the farce called the news.

So let me ask you, after all the debates you have seen on TV, whether be it the presidential debates or the "analysts" on the news shows you might have seen, how much more well informed have you become? What concrete conclusions have you drawn from what you've seen? If you can't answer these question now or can't ever make use of what use of what you've seen on the news in your life, then what you've seen was complete and utter waste of time.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled program.