Looking at news programs, opinions need more facts

Column by Matthew Christy

So much of who we are as people comes down to who we choose to listen to, whose advice and opinions we revere.

In this day and age, we are inundated with personalities in the media with news option programs telling us what to believe. One such person, Lou Dobbs, left CNN this week. Let’s look at what Dobbs had to tell us during his time there.

Dobbs presented himself as a champion of the middle class, a man with your best interest at heart.

While at CNN, Dobbs warned the middle class he so cherished about how illegal immigrants were responsible for an outbreak of leprosy in the U.S. — which it turns out never happened.

He warned us about the international conspiracy to combine all the nations of North America into one entity, a step our government would take without consent to undermine our rights, for no apparent reason.

Some would say there must be at least some truth in what he said because he was on CNN and surely had to present some kind of evidence. However, on his show, Dobbs used data from the white supremacist group the Council of Conservative Citizens to support his claims of a pending Mexican invasion.

According to the mission statement on its Web site, the Council of Conservative Citizens believes, “the American people and government should remain European in their composition and character.” The group opposes, “all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people … ”

The upshot is Dobbs is either a crazy person, a liar or lacks the intellectual depth to understand the difference between fact and fiction. He is certainly prejudice.

In the end, his show can be remembered as a vehicle to slowly spread hateful lies under the guise of a news program, but he didn’t actually have a news program. He had an opinion program. This seemingly subtle semantic difference is responsible for the near complete loss of accountability in media.

The money in news media comes from spectacle and controversy, not news. Some tricks to keep news interesting are to be expected, like always getting two people who represent two extreme views to debate issues on air rather than finding moderates or slapping a breaking news label on something that has been going on for months and just hasn’t been covered yet. Opinion shows have taken it a step further.

Dobbs had a show that looked like a news show. It had reporters and everything, but as an opinion show host, he could say literally anything and not have failed at his mission because it truly was his opinion — and it didn’t even have to make sense. The worst part is that he looked so legitimate.

Dobbs leaving is what my mother used to call a teachable moment. Sure, he shouldn’t have been on a respectable network as long as he was, and sure, we shouldn’t have kept watching, but now that he is gone we can look back at what he stood for and realize how important it is to hold everyone dealing with the news accountable to the truth.

We have to stop turning to opinion shows for news, because if it is not Dobbs telling you Mexicans are invading, it’s Glenn Beck telling you Obama will send you to jail for not having health insurance.

When people watch opinion news shows, they might use the data presented to vote and they may treat other people differently based on what they heard. It affects their world view.

Don’t let yourself fall into that trap. If someone is coming through your television and telling you what to think, ask questions and look for other sources to confirm what they say. Look for other sources to confirm what I just said. We have to be aware that just because something looks like news doesn’t mean that it has any basis in reality.

Matthew Christy is a history senior. E-mail opinions@kykernel.com.