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When I was growing up in New York in the 1970s, the city was at its lowest point. Whether it is bankruptcy burned building and widespread crime I started studying in a government school. Then I switched to private school in Grade 5. My parents made the change because they said that if I went to the local middle school, I would be “stabbed in the hall.” This was a made up act.
I said it was fiction. It’s not because getting stabbed with a knife is impossible. But because it is a guess. which is one of the possible futures In fact Thousands of children attended middle school in the 70s that decade and were never knifed or threatened with a knife. Even though some people have never been knifed, in my house the fear of what the future might hold was strong enough for my father to take on extra work and make changes.
As a novelist and filmmaker I spend a lot of time thinking about the value of fiction. I tell stories to help me understand my world and the people in it. My job is to create feelings in the audience. fear and desire happiness and anger Considering the role of writers in our culture I imagine the following order: first the news, then the history. Then came writing a novel. Writers and filmmakers are the cleaning crew. Separating the meaning from our shared historical reality, however, over the past 10 years, I have noticed something curious at first. Then it was shocking. Fact and fiction are interchanged respectively.
(Tom Nicholls: Trump’s Marathon)
I first saw evidence of this phenomenon during my week-and-a-half of coverage of the 2016 Republican National Convention. A CNN anchor said in an interview with Newt Gingrich, a Republican politician and former Speaker of the House, that Violent crime has spread throughout the country. But Gingrich argued that this was just one “perspective” and that people “felt more threatened.” The CNN anchor confirmed that they “felt it, yes.” They felt it. But the facts don’t support it,” Gingrich said. “As a political candidate I will base it on people’s feelings. And I will leave you to the theorists.”
This is an early sign that we are moving. or may have already moved From a fact-based world to a fictional world. This is just as true of people’s feelings about crime as it is about crime. with crime itself my feelings your feelings Everyone’s feelings are facts. And it is a fact that is equally valuable as the actual reality. Crimes happen because I feel like crimes happen. And you will never convince me otherwise. Because my feelings are facts
As I said before This feeling is only for fiction writers. We create our stories based on how our characters feel. How do they feel? drive their actions According to tradition Feelings are not how we as humans understand reality. But it’s how we filter events down to first news and history. All of this comes together—in a perfect world—from actual facts. It is an objective recording of events that occurred. Player motivation is certainly important. But the feeling of. reader– of observer– How we feel about what is happening in the world cannot change what is happening, can we?
That’s one sign. Another is the rapid spread of alternative narratives in the past, when news broke. The media will report the facts. Two planes hit the twin towers and collapsed. After that there are conspiracy theories. emerged—9/11 was an inside job, for example.
Later, January 6th was an event that revealed both fact and fiction. together– While the mainstream media shows us images of Donald supporters Trump storms the Capitol in real time, Fox News, other right-wing outlets and social media tell People said the riots they were watching were really the work of Antifa, so right in front of our eyes. Thus a fictional version of the time was born along with reality.
These days, MAGA fiction focuses primarily on the present – “They’re eating the dog; They are eating cats”—and the past is a stolen election. It’s a story of a time when America was “great.” But this fictional thought process isn’t limited to just rights. Mainstream news sources are also increasingly engaging in fictional acts, however, rather than past or present. Their novels focus primarily on the future. During the 2024 elections, this saga is about what can be done. Happening if Trump is re-elected: Gloomy speculation about all the ways it could lead to the end of democracy, for example, earlier this year. This magazine published a series of articles under the headline: “If Trump wins” Now that he has, the speculation has only increased.
Think of it as the opposite of fan fiction—Donald Trump: The Story of One Day of Dictatorship– A revenge fantasy starring Matt Gaetz as the Grim Reaper. Plenty in the Trump era This resonates with World Wrestling Entertainment. A violent drama filled with big characters driven by frustration and a need for payback.
Each new Cabinet appointment sparks speculation about soldiers on the streets, 10 million immigrants deported, and Nancy Pelosi jailed. Like my potential for daggers in the halls of middle school. These consequences are not impossible. In fact, Trump has threatened to do all of these things. And it’s not even possible. But their exhaustive discussions take place in the same sources that report the facts on a daily basis. It leaves Americans confused about the role news media should play in our society. That is, reporting the facts and letting the audience express their opinions.
Speculation is not the job of journalism. It’s what the anxious brain does. By worrying about everything that could go wrong. Sends anxious people into a state of panic and anger – I might add that the same state of mind has consumed Fox News viewers. Over the past 20 years, Fox has helped ease the anxiety of billions of viewers. The host’s fear inspired more and more viewers to watch Fox. with cause and effect occurring In the online age, this is called Doomscrolling
You could argue that there is no equality. Replacing fact with fiction these days is dangerous. While painting a picture of a potential disaster is only natural. preparing– My point is not that news organizations are creating a threat to democracy. My point is when they populate the feed with What will happen ifThey devalue journalism. Turn news into gossip and journalists become experts
This is not a new phenomenon. Cable news networks and 24-hour talk radio are alarmists. But in a country where news media is polarized between “our” and “their” sources, we should consider the idea of how journalists report news. It may be as important as the news itself. And if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? Journalists should investigate the possibility that nearly a decade of “resistance” will have the opposite effect as intended. In the end Major news organizations We’ve been warning for years that Trump is dangerous. But he only became more popular. Mainstream media can get caught up in an emotional response with viewers that heightens fear and anger at the loss of our shared reality.
(From the March 2023 issue, we lost the plot.)
There’s a bigger story here about how algorithms push highly emotionally impactful content into our feeds. And how do clicks and likes help generate advertising revenue? That is the story about how news is a for-profit business. But at the level it is a story about how news organizations approach the task of informing Americans about the events and personalities of the day. I’ll keep it simple and say that by using the tools of fiction to instill feelings of fear and anger, news platforms undermine the true value of news. and reduce people’s ability to clearly consider news after that afraidAs the novelist Frank Herbert once writeis mind killer–
One day in the near future History books will be written about what actually happened in Trump’s second term, and then fiction writers will descend. looking for meaning Meditate on the reality that we have experienced. The truth that we have discovered And if it turns out we were all stabbed in the hall with knives. We will write about that as well. But until then I think we would all be best served by focusing on what is going on. It’s not something that might be possible.
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