The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media

Objectivity works to repel the attacks of critics, like a kind of ethical pepper spray.

There's a long-standing debate in the media biz over whether the news outlets should give the public what it wants, or what it needs. This debate presupposes that media execs actually know what it wants or needs. And that there actually is a unitary "public.

Speech itself, inevitable and unrelenting is the wind. It can dance like a zephyr. It can roar or shriek or wail. But it cant be stopped. Everything we hate about the media today was present at its creation; its corrupt or craven practitioners, its easy manipulation by the powerful, its capacity for propagating lies, its penchant for amplifying rage. Also present was everything we admire: factual information, penetrating analysis, probing investigation, truth spoken to power. Same as it ever was.

Humans run on emotion, assumption and impulse. We cant function on logic alone. But emotion assumption and impulse also allow us to weave cozy cocoons of unexamined prejudice and received wisdom. They shield us from the pain of unwelcome information.

Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it. Finally suppose he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence that his belief is wrong. What will happen? The individual will frequently emerge not only unshaken but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed he may even show a new fervor for converting other people to his view.

The big threat of photoshopification is not that we will believe documents and photos are fake. Its that we'll find it easier to disbelieve documents and photos that are real, when its convenient.

Many focus on what they perceive as a loss of some vital aspect of our humanity. To me, the sessence of being human is not in our limitations. It is our ability to reach beyond our limitations. We did not stay on the ground. We did not even stay on the planet. And we are already not settling for the limitations of our biology.

Worrying about offending people drags us back to the lowest common denominator Our enemies are not the digital bits that dance across our screens but the neural impulses that animate our lizard brains