News Media: See That Bag on Fire, but Don’t Stomp it Out

I don’t make a lot of accusations or scratch out too many lines in the sand, but I always check multiple sources before I do. That’s not because I’m a super extra wonderful human being; it’s because I’ve seen what happens when someone decides their news source is the one news source left on earth where no one has any agenda or ambition beyond an honest accounting of the day’s events and earning the trust of their valued viewers.

Yeahright.

If that source has been a source for any time at all, they know that whatever happened in the world that day isn’t nearly as important or profitable as how they can use it to stoke their core audience’s fear and hatred of anyone who isn’t in lockstep agreement with the party line. That’s not the kind of thing that ever reins itself back in. It’s the kind of thing that starts believing its own hype and hysteria.

And for the first time in my 62 years I’m seeing how easy it would be to fall in with that. Just over the last couple months I’ve very nearly jumped at a few reports that I KNEW were bait. But I didn’t. And I won’t. I see that bag on fire, but I’m not going to stomp it out. I know what’s in there.

There’s going to come a time – there is ALWAYS going to come a time – that they’ll tell you something you CAN’T believe, or something you’ll already know isn’t true. And judging from the times I’ve seen it happen, your first thought isn’t going to be “damn, they lied to me,” it’s going to be “damn, how long have they BEEN lying to me?” And how much of it have you vouched for by posting it up as actual news?

I have no problem with looking like an idiot if I have to. But I never want to have to wonder how often I’ve bragged to everyone I know that I’ll believe just about anything I’m told, and if they want to stay on good terms with me I expect them to believe it too.

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Bama has been a rodeo cowboy, a professional stuntman, and, for 39 years and counting, a bouncer at various biker bars and redneck rat cage juke joints through the Deep South. He makes cool stuff as Crimson Tied Paragear, using knots his Army Ranger Scoutmaster taught him at Boy Scout summer camp deep in the Okinawan boonies back in 1972.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.