Via FishbowlNY, we learn that actor Richard Dreyfuss is currently studying civics and democracy at the University of Oxford (following in the footsteps of Bill Clinton?), and he's grown hopping mad at media bias: the pro-Bush kind. It has been "sacrificing accuracy and impartiality for sensationalism and instant gratification."
He "expressed alarm that a few big media corporations control most of the news the general public has access to. Dreyfuss, who is a longtime political activist, has also campaigned for peace in the Middle East and lent his support to a campaign calling for the impeachment of US President George W. Bush." Dreyfuss is then quoted at length, or perhaps in short bursts:
There is no room to pause, no room to think. We don't build into our system of thoughts the need to explain, the media doesn't build that into its transmission of knowledge and information.
Information from more than one source is good. I'm totally in favour of it, even if people send propaganda. In the aggregate you can find more truth than in one opinion.
The falling Twin Towers (in New York City on September 11th 2001) - pictures that produced anger, a lot of anger that was sent instantly around the world, they created a need to react. People in Kansas could see the Twin Towers fall at exactly the same instant as in Nigeria and Cairo.
Such an instantaneous knowledge of a situation leads to an instantaneous reaction which creates demand for an instantaneous, reflexive response.
The question is how do you get people to find out more, how do you get people to read not just what they are told to read.
You have to encourage prose, analysis and detail - otherwise people will go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan without really knowing why.
Well, here we are, the traditional liberal position: truly educated people, who don't respond "reflexively" by seeking out the terrorists and killing them, should be in charge, and everyone should admire their high achievement in cogitation over combat. To Dreyfuss, "war on terror" is a tawdry phrase, and a tawdier concept:
The 'war on terror' - objection to using this term is dead. It's become part of our vocabulary, but what does it really mean? You should know more specifically what you are fighting.
Civics is no longer taught in the US, a sign of a neurosis that is inexplicable. Not to teach civics is suicide.
Reason, logic, civility, dissent and debate -- five ancient words that should be taught again and better, at elementary level, so that people know the difference between news and shaped news.
