In the coming weeks, I will be laying out some of the foundational principles by which I analyze news, politics and current events. The first of these principles is stunningly obvious, yet amazingly elusive in identification:
All politics, current events, scientific discovery, religious expression, foreign relations and news coverage is determined by the decisions and actions of people. These people make decisions and take actions based upon their perspectives which are shaped by their past experience and personalities.
In short: World events are driven my people who are guided by perspective shaped from past experience and personality.
A recent article in the Washington Post perfectly illustrates this principle in action - - When many American's think of the "Iraq War" or the "Global War on Terrorism" they instinctively think in terms persistently presented to them by influential people who interpret the world according to their own perspectives informed by a mixture of their own past experiences and personalities.
A few fascinating excerpts follow. Note the subtle manner by which most American's are lead to think of the defining struggle of modern civilization - through the combined perspectives of a few people which have been shaped by their own prejudices of personality and past experience:
Charlie Gibson is a product of the Vietnam War era. When he was a television reporter in Lynchburg, Va., he had driven to Washington on weekends to march in antiwar demonstrations. And he had lost friends in that jungle war. . . Through the routine decisions of daily journalism -- how prominently to play a story, what pictures to use, what voices to include -- the newscasts were sending an unmistakable message. And the message was that George W. Bush's war was a debacle. Administration officials regularly complained about the coverage as unduly negative, but to little avail. Other news organizations chronicled the deteriorating situation as well, but with a combined 25 million viewers, the evening newscasts had the biggest megaphone.
Katie Couric had always felt uncomfortable with the war, and that sometimes showed in the way she framed the story. When Bush had been marshaling support for the invasion, she felt, the country seemed to be swept up in a patriotic furor and a palpable sense of fear. There was a rush to war, no question about it. The CBS anchor could never quite figure out how Iraq had become Public Enemy No. 1, how the United States had wound up making many of the same mistakes as in Vietnam. . . Couric believed that many viewers were now suffering from Iraq fatigue. She tried not to lead with the conflict every night, unless there were significant developments. And when the day's Iraq events were too big to ignore, Couric made clear -- in starker terms than the other anchors -- her disgust with the whole enterprise. One night she led her CBS newscast, "With each death, with every passing day, so many of us ask, 'Is there any way out of this nightmare?' "
I encourage a read of the entire article for a stark, startling and educational exploration the first principle.
On Principle,
CBass
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