Media consumption

Much like the food that we take in several times a day, media too, gets ingested into our system on a daily basis, quickly becoming a part of our make-up. All that violence and cynical mindset that we view on the TV, read in the paper, see on the web...it all gets planted in our brains and in our psyche...seeds that can harm both us and the environment around us.

I say this, of course, being, a card-carrying member of the media. I fully admit that from the inside, as well as the outside viewer-standpoint, it does get into our system, shape us, and change us.

All of these things that we witness every day desensitize us to the world we inhabit. When I sit back and realize all the horrific scenes I've witnessed, wrote about, talked about in daily discussion...I once in a while pause...and ask myself 'how is this normal?' Discussing brutal crimes, or the corruption of political systems and the like...those things have a way of just becoming such a part of our normal lives and intake that we lose the sensitivity to all the life around us.

It's a scary slope to walk...and it doesn't surprise me that I've run into so many jaded journalists in my day.


Look at the figures - by the time an average American is 18 years old, they have seen 16,000 simulated murders, and another 200,000 other acts of violence. That's insane. No wonder it's so hard to find non-cynics in the world today - we just continue to breed that jaded cynism...and as a member of the media, I find myself just as guilty, if not moreso.

I've always tried to keep my optimism churning, even when it seems difficult. Even I will admit, however, that the more time I spend in the business, the harder it can become. I laugh when I think of my first year or so in journalism. I was sitting with a colleague and discussing some situation, and trying to look on the bright side of things . Her response to me was "I just want to take off those rose-colored glasses of yours and stomp on them!"

No, I was not actually wearing rose-colored sunglasses...but you get the point.

I've always looked at that moment as one of those that epitomized my conflict with the business I was in. Here I was, an eternal ball of optimism for most of my life, fairly new to the journalism game...running smack-dab against the wall that was a journalist...and the inherent cynicism that she the career had already started to fill her with.

Sometimes when I find myself becoming a bit too caught up in the doom and gloom of the news business, I try to remember that moment and remind myself of the wealth of optimism that used to surge through my system, and strike it again like a match against a matchbox.

In other words, I find those rose-colored glasses, dust them off, and throw them back on my face. They're not broken...they can never be broken...unless you let them.

I'm not talking about banning all the media we take in. I'm not lobbying for some massive shutdown.

While we hold the switch to turn on this cynicism and ingest the material that may be desensitizing us, we also have the same power to turn the switch it off.