The Real Tragedy

Nancy Franklin
2 min readApr 2, 2021
Image credit: Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

My husband and I have been news junkies for as long as we have been together. I can’t imagine drinking our coffee without the morning news on the television, or dinner prep without the evening edition blaring.

I know I grew up like this as I think he did as well.

The problem is that news from all our media seems to have changed since our youth. I remember “just the facts”. It was verboten to interject opinions unless that was the format of the show. Though there wasn’t much competition for the big three outlets, you felt you could rely on the news to bring you, well…the news.

Not now.

There are several sources that help you decide the leaning toward a bias for the many news media outlets we have today. I have relied on several to discuss issues of bias in the media in my classes. Here’s a good one.

I have found sitting with any source of news these days just gets me flat-out angry. I’m angry that people can act so stupidly. I’m angry that the government cannot restrain itself. I’m angry at the intrusiveness of their reach. I’m angry at the lies told by both politicians on all sides, but also the media which more and more belies their roots.

I had a roommate in college who was in the J school — the School of Journalism. She was particularly haughty about her choice of work — the Fourth Estate. Meant to keep our democracy healthy. I wonder what she thinks of it now. I wonder what any journalist thinks about their neutrality on issues, their courage to confront propaganda, the lies of the power-hungry, and the graft of the elite.

I try to remember this Bible verse — Ecclesiastes 1:9:

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

I’m sure that my memory of the 80’s ad 90’s is censored by the ignorance of my youth for as I learn more and more about man’s history on this planet, I believe King Solomen must have been right.

The real tragedy is not the lies, or the power-grabs, or the graft.

The real tragedy is that we believe this stuff. We choke it down with our grain-fed factory-bred burgers and a side of fries in canola oil. And, if that isn’t salve enough, there’s always a craft brew to anesthetize ourselves long enough to ignore the truth.

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Nancy Franklin

Educator, blogger, overcomer. Lover of all things creative — especially dirt and words — not in the same space. Lifting others is my life force. Frankies.blog