How To Tell If You Are A Media News Idiot: A Test

Considering that we are all presently alive and therefore living in the Information Age, it is not inappropriate to ask whether we as individuals or we as a collective society are benefiting from the almost unlimited and unprecedented access to information that is promoted and advertised as the essence of the “Information Age”. This access has certainly not just changed our society; it has redefined almost every aspect of our lives which our society has established as the aspired to norm. We communicate with each other in forums and formats that did not even exist only a couple of years ago. We shop virtually, we entertain ourselves both singularly and as groups, and we work at home in our underwear conducting official functions on behalf of our corporate, public or governmental employers.

Among all this information that is available to our finger-tips, viewed on our screens and heard via our media players are a cornucopia of news purveyors. This veritable horn of plenty presents news outlets that are not actually any different than they have been in the past, there is just an over abundance of different voices harkening for our attention. Talking heads that are presenting the ‘news’ with any number of objectives and motives of their own divorced from insuring that you are being given facts as opposed to ‘spin’. This includes news celebrities and personalities that are perceived by many of their viewers as more important than the news or the validity of their representation of the information that they are presenting. While we have always had this aspect to our news distributors, I am not sure that it has been as callously and heinously abused within the American journalistic industry as it is today. But I can accept that it may only seem worse, since there is just more of it; rather than that the level of disreputable behaviors exhibited by the individuals, companies/corporations, and institutions constituting the news media is any greater than it has ever been.

So what’s a person to do? Who do you, or can you, rely upon to provide you with access to accurate, honest, and dependable news and information about your world? Well, the answer to that question is another American Intelligence Test. And as I have done before, you have to score your own test; and you have to rely upon your own self-respect and integrity to decide if you answer correctly or not. Just like with the ‘news’ media, you have to decide if you trust the source; and you will notice that this issue is part of the test itself.

So quills to the ready. It’s Test Time!

Question 1: Do you watch the News (A), or do you watch a News-caster or News show (B)?
The context of this question is whether the news is important to you because it is vital to insuring that you are aware of what is happening in the world and our society. And, that the news is not just reassuring you that the way you see the world is being affirmed by the broadcast; or that the news is a form of entertainment that you enjoy without any consideration of what the news reports are about?

Question 2: Do you find that you agree with and like the statements made by the news reporters/anchors regarding their news reports? [Y/N]
When you are listening to the reports (and interviews) are you usually on the side of the reporter, and agree with what they are saying? Do you think to yourself: “Yes, that’s the way it is.”?

Question 3: For the primary News show(s) that you watch regularly, do you trust that the news/information being presented and accurate and reliable account; and is the news being presented without the reporter’s/anchor’s position/opinion also being expressed? [Y/N]
Is the reporter/anchor telling why the new item they just mentioned is a good or bad event, that they agree with or disagree with the position depicted in the news, or that the news item is something that you should support or resist?

Question 4: Do you think a comedy show, like the Daily Show on the Comedy channel, could possibly provide better insight into issues in the news than the more traditional news broadcasts that you watch? [Y/N]
If you have ever watch one of these shows, has it ever seemed that the comedy show brought the events, issues or information into a better perspective and demonstrated a superior presentation of the new items to you than was done by the “real” news reporters, anchors, shows?

Question 5: For the news broadcast that you would consider your favorite, do you trust the reporter/anchor or new show? [Y/N]
This question is asking if you would place the judgment of the new-casters above your own? Do you think they have asked the right questions, done the right research or insured that the research was properly done for them; and that they have understood the event, issue and the news itself better than you?

Test Over. You can place your News IQ quills back in the old inkwell.

How did you do? And, oh yes, the most important of all the questions is: are you being honest with yourself?

If it’s of any interest, here’s how I did.

Question 1: A Question 2: N Question 3: Y Question 4: Y Question 5: N

This is your second opportunity to determine if you contribute more intellectual value to the American collective brain-bank than your fellow Americans, or if you are a millstone pulling us asunder.