Selective Inattention

Yesterday, Kansas City celebrated the Super Bowl champion Chiefs.  Outside it was cold and damp.  Despite the weather, hundreds of thousands came out for the tickertape parade and the rally at Union Station.  It was a joyful day, a party atmosphere for the city.

That evening, as is my routine, I watched the ABC World News.  Halfway through this national news broadcast there was mention of the Kansas City parade.  What was shown on T.V. had occurred just prior to the parade, a clip of a drug-impaired driver being chased down the parade route and caught.  The police had done well, a potential disaster averted.  No one was injured.

That was it.  There was no mention of the celebration.  No mention that the remainder of the event went without a hitch.  No mention of the tremendous joy and civic pride.  The news showed a brief chase scene and an impaired driver.  That’s what they chose to show.  Anyone watching only the news would have seen one more unpleasant incident in a newscast filled with unpleasant incidents.

There was so much that could have been covered, that could have been shown on the news.  There were many uplifting moments.  There were many memorable speeches.  There was so much energy coming from a crowd that had waited fifty years for the celebration.  There was so much youthful exuberance from the newly crowned champions.

I am not concerned by what was covered in the news.  I am concerned by what was not.  Call it ‘selective inattention’.  Nothing portrayed in the news was a lie.  Nothing was ‘fake news’.  However, through selection and through omission, the whole story was skewed and all that was so joyful was ignored.

With such glaring omissions, I assume there was an agenda.  I just can’t figure out what. Was it ratings?  Are ratings better when only reporting disasters and near misses?  Was it political?  Is the agenda of the news to remind us of what isn’t right with our society?  Was it editorial?  Are news editors on the East Coast dismissive of good news coming from the Heartland?  Was it the constraint of time?  If so, why show only the bad?

I believe that democracy must have a free and independent press.  I don’t like the current administration’s attacks on the media.  I don’t like the common accusatory cry of ‘fake news’.  I write this blog concerned for our free press. However, because of the glaring omissions, because of the ‘selective inattention’, in one otherwise trivial minute of television news I became aware how selective reporting gives credibility to its critics.