I used to think that Attention Deficit Disorder was a disease made up by parents who couldn't control their kids.
I used to think that people who claimed they had ADD were just too lazy to focus. I know now that it's actually a real problem because I have seen its effects. I have experienced the inability to focus on something for more than half a second and the attempts at absorbing a million different pieces of information at once.
It was not with a close personal friend or family member. I have not had these experiences personally. I was watching CNN.
I was hoping for some information on Syria or Libya or the tsunami in Japan, but I had forgotten that nothing stays on the news for more than a week anymore. There was plenty of speculation on Obama's poll numbers after killing Osama and lots of coverage on Trump and Huckabee deciding against a Presidential run.
What I was looking for was some in-depth reporting. Maybe some actual analysis, perhaps even a story explaining some of the build up to the revolutions in the Middle East. But no, what I got were some pundits saying the same thing over and over.
This problem, this ‘too much news' problem, may seem like a non-issue. There is a whole world of news out there to cover, and the 24-hour news networks have got to fill all 24 hours with new news.
What this ADD leads to though is a dearth of in-depth coverage. It leads to skimming every issue without really learning anything about it. There is a lot of news happening every day. People die, things blow up, governments are toppled. But there needs to be some sort of hierarchy in terms of covering them.
Lets be honest, Trump not running for President and Japan recovering from the largest natural disaster in decades are on different levels of importance. However, the ‘newness' of the news seems to be the measure of coverage and not the importance. For some reason, the powers-that-be have decided the public cares less about real information and more about new information, which are not the same thing.
Syria is one example. It was a little less than two months ago that Syria and all the other Middle Eastern revolutions were the only story getting coverage. Then there was Libya and the U.S. involvement, and then, well, nothing. Maybe I'm not watching the right news stations, or perhaps I'm watching at the wrong time, but it seems the Middle East has become passé, along with Japan, and anything else that happened more than a month ago.
The job of journalism is more than just to be a head spouting facts at people. Journalists are supposed to inform the public, something that should go beyond mere notification. It goes beyond plain facts, with no context, no follow up. If all the news does is shout facts at you before moving on to the next breaking story, nothing is gained.
It does the public no good to know what is happening without understanding it. Creating understanding, not just delivering information is part of the job description, and it seems that has been forgotten.
Reach the columnist at omcquarr@asu.edu
