Talking Back to the News: Is it Worth It?

These days more people than ever who follow the news, in spite of not having a professional or vocational interest in the news, comment on that news in one public way or another. Whether getting in their say on a comment thread at a news outlet, or on social media, or on a blog of their own, or any of a number of other places, they talk back to the media.

Often they do so because the coverage has in their view been unsatisfactory.

Often they find it unsatisfactory because, by a reasonable standard, it is unsatisfactory.

Those who do respond have every right to voice their opinion--with, I would add, their doing so an exercise of the right to free speech rather than an abuse of that right insofar as their opinion is an honest one. They may even be said to have an obligation to voice their opinion, if they are calling out something that must be called out.

Still, the time and energy absorbed by getting involved in such response, the deeper mental and emotional engagement involved, have their cost. Those who most recognize the news media's corruption and incompetence may, genuinely finding fault with just about everything that news media presents (which is easy enough, because they do such an atrocious job "bringing us the world"), may easily find themselves spending all their time talking back in this way.

Indeed, in an age in which the most pompous news outlets out there make clickbait of their headlines, with obnoxious provocation a common strategy, much of their content is intended to spur such a reaction--such that making his case for why The Atlantic is "the worst magazine in America" Nathan J. Robinson remarks how many of that publication's headlines are "designed to annoy people into arguing about it," such that he has to remind himself "that 'it's bad on purpose to make you click" in order "to restrain [his] instinct to write multi-thousand word rebuttals." Those of us who, unlike Mr. Robinson, are not making a living from our opinions, or enjoying access to platforms that would permit our "multi-thousand word rebuttals" to reach an appreciable audience, can still less afford to get sucked into doing so every time we see a crime against journalism, even those apt to appear in a single publication (like The Atlantic). I will not go so far as to say that you should never talk back, but you should know the practical cost, be selective--and if you feel you can't do that anymore, probably reduce your exposure to the news rather than talk back to it all.