We’re all creatures of habit //
I hope each of you had a safe, relaxing holiday weekend, complete with good food, and friction-free table conversations about something other than politics. It’s good to be back in your inbox.
Our habits were upended throughout the pandemic. Just as we look differently at public door handles, Ubers, and large gatherings, the very nature of news discovery and consumption has changed in the last 18 months. If you felt the news was biased and divisive prior to March 2020, you’re likely to feel even more that way in December 2021.
News consumers impose many standards for how they believe the media should perform its duties, which are very different from the standards we impose on ourselves. We as consumers often gravitate towards information we agree with, information that makes us feel good about ourselves, and information that makes us feel superior to others. But those behaviors don’t make us better informed.
When we allow news organizations to pander to our biases, the quality of the content they deliver decreases. We don’t want news organizations to pander to us. We want them to serve us the objective truth.
- I can ad. According to recent studies, ___ out of 10 Americans have difficulty distinguishing between organic and sponsored news stories (answer below)
