Let’s Change This Toxic Culture
Tags: News Network, Culture, Society, Politics, Media Criticism

The media have not been our friends here. They’ve chosen ratings above all, and we’ve all followed this clickbait, feeling outraged on a daily basis.

And where does all this outrage go? I’m pretty sure it’s not made for a healthier home environment. I’m sure it hasn’t meant less violence on the streets. I’m sure it hasn’t brought peace and calm to the nation.

It’s been ugly. And some conscious change needs to come about.

Come on media — where is your responsibility to the public and the nation to decrease this dark cloud that hangs over us?

I think I can say with confidence that people on both sides would appreciate something else. And hearing uplifting human stories bonds us. We begin to see the common human traits we all have.

Who isn’t uplifted by hearing about a selfless act?

Who doesn’t feel uplifted by hearing about an act of generosity?

Who doesn’t want to hear more about inspiring human stories?

Who doesn’t want to hear about how humans can transcend the current circumstances and rise above?

These are all essential stories that fill us with hope: They remind us of all the good humankind can do. That humans can contribute instead of tearing apart.

And these stories are empowering. They remind us what we’re capable of.

The National dialog has become so much about scrapping over opinions. Social media has been a huge instigator of creating ‘sides and tribes.’

I want to get back to that place when a person’s voting was their own business, and nobody else’s. And that will only come about from people choosing not to go to social media for their political information.

How this can be achieved? I’d imagine like anything else that tech companies care about, it has to be attached to financial gains versus losses. But I’m sure greater minds than mine would be able to game this out, seeing that this is for the greater good.

I know I’m being idealistic to the extreme here, but if we don’t begin to attribute these problems to certain dynamics in play, we can’t begin to address them.

The entire media industry needs a carrot and stick incentive to be better players, somehow.

I read an article the other day that said, since the advent of sales numbers recorded globally, the two biggest sellers are Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings followed by The Hobbit.

This informs me quite a bit. That people want to hear about the hero’s journey, and that we believe that good will win over evil. That is what people still believe in…

And I believe! I believe in the amazing human spirit. The ability for humans to do good, — Hell, great things.

And I do want to hear these stories.

Photo by Judi Neumeyer on Unsplash

I’m not talking about a puppy being saved (no offense to puppies, and very cute shot above), and that’s fine for a local newspaper, but I’m aspiring to greater deeds, where there’s human to human sacrifice, and benevolence, frequently against the odds.

Some may think that’s too much to expect from us, but there are amazing deeds done every single day. But the media are choosing not to look for these kinds of stories.

And if they were truly seeking out those stories, they could also look to history for further demonstrations of what humans can achieve. We have so much proof of the positive attributes and lengths humans will go to for fellow humans, and yet we live in an era of doom and shine the light only on the darker side of human nature.

The story being told can be ‘how far apart’ we are from each other, or ‘how closely we are bonded.’ And we need the bonding. We need that sustenance for the soul.

We can either be reminded of humankind’s failings every day.

Or we can hear about its successes.