By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.
How can you be an informed citizen without going insane in an insane world? It starts with reading the newspaper.
The week of Oct. 6-12 was National Newspaper Week, sponsored by Newspaper Association Managers.
It’s a good way to remind ourselves that the best way to keep informed is through a news provider where working journalists interview sources, sit through government meetings from beginning to end, and present facts and differing viewpoints because they trust us to make up our own minds.
That’s the newspaper. Here’s how you can use this invaluable tool.
First, you should subscribe – to your local newspaper and probably also to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for more state, national and world events. Your local paper focuses on your community, as it should.
Subscribing costs money. Meanwhile, there are plenty of sources of free information, including talk radio, cable news, opinionated websites, Facebook and Twitter.
But you know the old saying that you get what you pay for? Those free sources often are completely biased. They often don’t do the legwork that ferrets out the truth. They fill time by ranting and shouting alongside politico-celebrities from the left or the right. Many make money by fueling our outrage. That outrage is addictive, and like all addictions, harmful to ourselves and our society. And Facebook and Twitter just dump everything in our laps at once. There’s some good there, and a lot of garbage.
Newspapers are a better tool, but like all tools, there are right ways and wrong ways to use them. Here are some suggestions on using them the right way.
If you subscribe both to the Democrat-Gazette and your local newspaper, set a daily time limit on your Democrat-Gazette consumption – perhaps 20 minutes a day, or 30 if you’re really interested. Or, you might set it aside for two days and then read it for 40 minutes every third day, starting with the most recent edition and then working your way backwards. You can skip a lot of updated stories that way.
Try to read stories about the big picture. Your eyes might be drawn to a murder in some Arkansas town. Instead, read the in-depth story about how violent crime rates actually have fallen nationally since the 1990s. (You won’t hear that on talk radio!) And no matter what you read, try not to get too upset about it. Being outraged is not the same thing as taking constructive action.
We’re very much getting into do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do territory, but once you’ve reached your time limit, get back to your real life. Limit your media exposure the rest of the day unless it’s truly valuable information. Twenty or 30 minutes a day is enough time spent thinking about things you can’t control. Most importantly, avoid all news sources where angry people seek to make you angry, too. As Proverbs 22:24-25 teaches, “Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go: Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul.”
But don’t worry about time limits when it comes to your local newspaper. Read as much as you want. Read enough of the government stories, even those that don’t interest you, so that you understand the general direction of your city, county and school district. Read about good people doing good things in your community; it might encourage you to get involved too. Look through the obituaries; a family you know might need a kind word. Check out the display ads and want ads for deals; you might save more money than the subscription costs. And of course, read my columns.
Think you don’t have time to read your local newspaper? Keep it next to the toilet, and leave your cell phone charging somewhere else. If two or three issues stack up unread, scan them and toss them. Otherwise, it becomes an overwhelming task, and you’ll reach for that stupid cell phone instead.
It is possible to be an informed citizen without going insane, but you need the right habits and the best tools.
The right habits are up to you. The best tools? Newspapers. You get what you pay for.