My friend Broxton Gannon posed a fascinating question to me last week that I have been pondering for days now.
As a reminder, Broxton serves on staff at Ridgecrest as our Director of Internet Ministries. He has a Substack and was the subject of one of my earlier "Writers I Recommend" Substacks.
The question:
BROXTON: Do you have a working theory on how we square the negative aspects of “gate keeping” from legacy media with the negative aspects of access to way too much information from newer forms of media? Obviously things like Twitter and Substack have a place but I’m experiencing a lot of information overload lately and wondering if there’s a lot to be said for a gatekeeper telling me what I need to know after all.
It’s worth providing some context before I post the response. The legacy media is primarily ABC, NBC, CBS and large newspapers such as the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, etc. During the legacy media era, we had few sources for news. So, fewer sources led to less news for the consumer. This made the job of the “gatekeeper” vitally important. The “gatekeeper” is the person (or people) who decide what gets printed or broadcast.
During the era of legacy media, networks had a 30-minute window per day and newspapers had a certain amount of space. Editors had to decide what was really important for people to know.
Broxton is Gen Z and never really experienced the legacy media era. Today, there are tons of sources out there and he is experiencing information overload. In this new era of “news”, how do we determine what’s true or what’s even important?
This was my response along with a few more questions:
LANCE: Fascinating question for which I wish I had a simple answer. We obviously have been privy to some important information that a single gatekeeper (or very few gatekeepers) probably would not have provided. At the same time, if you have 1000 sources of information, rest assured, about 950 of them will be toxic and that is not good for anyone either. I just ran across a podcast this morning that has given me more clarity on all of the Trump prosecutions than anything I have read or heard before so I’m glad for that. However, the general public will focus on the one or two sources that lead them to believe what they already want to believe, and it goes back to the tinkling ears from Scripture. So what’s better on balance? Probably fewer “gatekeepers” even though you give up some things there.
LANCE: Can you picture a time where news was just three network broadcasts at 5:30 p.m. daily and one local newspaper with state and national news from the Associated Press? It was definitely different. In the era we live in now, how do you try to determine what’s factual and important? Do you have a filter?
BROXTON: As a kid waiting for my dad to pick me up once he got off work, I do remember “watching the news” with my grandparents. I remember my grandparents mentioning an article they read in “The Paper” every now and then. This is completely foreign to the news environment I find myself trying to sift through now as an adult.
When I began taking an interest in current events in college, podcasts were my go-to medium because there’s a lot of walking involved on campus so there’s a lot of time for listening. I didn’t (and still don’t) enjoy the idea of sitting down at 5:30 every night to watch the news. I subscribed to a significant number of news/commentary podcasts to expose myself to a wide range of views and even picked up on the various sources the hosts mentioned on their shows. That was five or six years ago now. One thing led to another and now there is so much information out there that it is increasingly difficult to keep up with, hence my question to you.
I still have the same sort of philosophy in that I expose myself to multiple points of view, but now I’m teaching myself to be more selective for a couple reasons. First, I’m not walking around a university campus anymore. There’s not nearly as much listening time as there used to be, so I can’t listen to it all. I still subscribe to many of the same shows, but before I listen I try to read descriptions and determine if it’s really worth my time.
That brings me to my 2nd reason for being selective: mental wellbeing. There’s a difference between being well informed about what’s happening in the world and allowing what's happening to mentally consume your life. The show notes often indicate whether this is something that would actually be helpful to know or if this is something that will stress me out even though it’s out of my control.
In addition to a few podcasts, I subscribe to a handful of newsletters and look at a few different websites. I skim these whenever I get a chance, but I wouldn’t call it appointment reading/listening.
LANCE: I’m not naïve. I understand that there was a bit of massaging to the news back in the day. It was subtle, but even in the day of three networks and 30 minutes a day, there was a bit of steering. Primarily, however, it was just the facts. Yes, the three networks competed against each other but they at least played within a certain boundary of the truth. Today, it’s crazy. I’m not sure anyone is genuinely concerned with giving the unvarnished truth to the people, although I know some are closer than others. Having said that, in exposing yourself to a variety of sources, how do you try to figure out what’s close to true and what’s not?
BROXTON: I must give credit to an admittedly biased conservative commentator for this advice, Ben Shapiro. Whenever he’s asked this question, Ben suggests trying to find 2-3 different sources on any given news story, each from a different viewpoint. If you read all three and notice that a piece of information here or there was mentioned in all three stories, there’s a good chance that piece of information is the truth because multiple sources have confirmed it. I didn’t go to J school like you, but it seems like that’s a basic tenet of journalism that can be practiced by the average consumer. Of course, this advice isn’t exhaustive. It doesn’t mean that everything else in the stories isn’t necessarily true… But this is a good starting place because at least you’re doing a little something to prevent yourself from living in an echo chamber.
Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that bias does exist and there’s not a lot we can do to escape it. A story can be “accurately reported” in that all the details are solidly confirmed by multiple sources, but that doesn’t mean bias played no part in the editorial process. I think this is especially true in a 30-minute news broadcast. There’s only so much content you can fit in that 30 minutes, so what gets left out is left up to the discretion of editors/producers. This is why I respect outlets that own their bias but still try to give you the facts as best they can. Daily Wire is an outlet staffed with writers/reporters/commentators on the Right. Vox is an outlet that leans more to the Left. WORLD News (magazine, online, radio) is an outlet that seeks to apply a Biblical worldview to journalism. Personally, knowing these things gives me a greater understanding of what I consume from these outlets.
Of course, these kinds of practices take a lot of time. We have to consider what a healthy amount of time to devote to “being informed” really is… Which just brings us back to why I asked you that question in the first place, I suppose.
LANCE: Final question. In exposing yourself to all of these different sources for news, what have you learned about the process itself? And what does that make you think about whatever is being reported generally?
BROXTON: I’ll answer that question with this thought. I just read one of WORLD News’ newsletters a few minutes ago and the writer used an interesting phrase: a theology of the news. A phrase like that has a million different implications that I’m not sure I can provide sufficient direction on, but I think those implications need to be discussed in the Church.
The Bible describes the sons of Issachar as “men who had an understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32). It’s important that we too are men who understand the times so that we can know what we ought to do. We do that by being Biblically informed, obviously, but also by being informed about our world. What we’ve discussed here only begins to scratch the surface of what a theology of the news should look like, but I think it’s a vital conversation to start having.
The process of the news is not immune to human depravity. Bias exists, corruption exists, and grifting exists. There’s big money to be made in the news business if you go about it a certain way, especially in an information environment dominated by social media. Christians must be aware of these facts and proceed with cautious wisdom. Finally, it’s vital that Christians participate in the information environment as Christians. That’s not to say every news article has to have a devotional or Scripture reference tacked on at the end. It just means faithful Christians should go into journalism and do excellent journalism (Colossians 3:23). God doesn’t intend all of us to be journalists, but that is His plan for some!
Closing Takeaways
I think it is vital to expose yourself to a number of sources for news, especially some sources that lean against your worldview. That may sound counter to my original answer that fewer gatekeepers are better. It’s not. I think fewer are better but since we don’t have fewer gatekeepers, then we as consumers must take the extra step of reading or listening to multiple sources of news.
As Broxton said, we could go in a million different directions with what it means to develop a “theology of news.” But there is one thing vital for professing Christians. In the same way that the foundation of journalism is a pursuit of truth, Christians should be very careful about what types of news we share on social media because truth should be of the utmost importance to us.
When Christ was here on earth physically, He said He was “the truth” (John 14:6) and that He had come to “bear witness to the truth” (John 18:37). So Jesus is saying that He is the truth and He is also a visual representation of the truth. He IS truth and He carries truth.
So truth should be of extremely high value to the professing Christian. We should seek it in all we do, uphold it through how we live and defend it fiercely in whatever direction that takes us. And sometimes, truth will take us in a direction that may not match up with our sentiment.
It’s hard to determine truth in the news today and so we should be extra careful in what we share.
Finally, as Broxton said, we should not let news consume us. Remember, we’re supposed to be the consumer, not the consumed. I try to limit my national news consumption to 30 minutes a day.
If you get home at the end of the day and your primary news consumption is an hour of Laura Ingraham on Fox News, followed by an hour of Jesse Waters and then an hour of Sean Hannity, what is happening to your brain is very similar to what happens when you take drugs. You are enticed in such a way that you become convinced you can’t miss tomorrow night because what they have to tell you is too valuable, and you become addicted.
The same is true if you watch the CNN primetime slate, or MSNBC or OAN, etc.
It’s important to note that on occasion, they do provide important information that may not be reported anywhere else. On balance, however, they’ve simply become very very good at finding out what you WANT to hear and delivering it to you in huge doses every evening until you think you are dependent on it.
So, be judicious in your news consumption. Venture outside the echo chamber to pursue truth and be careful about what you share on social media.
How do you consume the news and do you have advice on how to determine what you are reading or viewing is accurate? I’d love to hear from you.
What an interesting article. I could write a dissertation for a response to this, but will save my fat thumbs from trying to type one on my phone. Hope to run into you one day soon as I would love to converse on this topic.