Media & The Internet

“The irony of the Information Age is that it has given respectability to uninformed opinion.”

Veteran reporter John Lawton, 68, speaking to the American Association of Broadcast Journalists in 1995

(taken from the epigraph of Michael Crichton’s Airframe)

With all the reporting on the Boston Marathon bombing, I wanted to revisit this quote. I find many people, myself included, jumped to conclusions after scanning the hysteria and sensationalism that flooded our Facebook timelines/Twitter feeds. After spending ten hours glued to my couch watching CNN, I did not find myself more informed or knowledgeable. In fact, the only thing I discovered was that I had been sucked into the media frenzy and communal mania, and nothing more. May I never waste my time like that again.

I regard this as a lesson and warning to myself to stay informed, calm and rational.