Snippet: Click Bait, Manipulating Facts, and Guarding Our Hearts

snip·pet | ˈsnipit | noun a small piece or brief extract.

This is from Miles Park in a segment from NPR’s “All Things Considered,” covering the phenomenon that is Ben Shapiro and his The Daily Wire company:

“The articles The Daily Wire publishes don't normally include falsehoods (with some exceptions), and the site said it is committed to ‘truthful, accurate and ethical reporting.’ But as Settle explains, by only covering specific stories that bolster the conservative agenda (such as negative reports about socialist countries and polarizing ones about race and sexuality issues) and only including certain facts, readers still come away from The Daily Wire's content with the impression that Republican politicians can do little wrong and cancel culture is among the nation's greatest threats.”

I heard a commentary on this NPR piece that pointed out the irony of NPR running what they called a “hit piece” on Ben Shapiro since they do the same thing but from the left and without as much success. The comment was not from a conservative site.

I think it’s safe to say there are very few news sources today that don’t scream bias and skew issues by covering only certain stories and including only certain facts (or, you might say, conveniently excluding certain facts). Get ready for a whole new rash of these kinds of stories if our state mandates masks again!

The click-bait-outrage-producing-fear-mongering headlines and selective “reporting” coming from all sides is frustrating, mostly because most of us seem completely unaware of what’s happening, especially when we already agree with the writer’s point of view.

One friend recently described the tension at an extended family reunion. “My mom spends the day with Fox News on in the background and my father-in-law does the same thing with CNN, so it makes things really tense when we have family gatherings.” It wasn’t that people were fighting, but it made conversations about almost anything tense or taboo.

We can also see the divide in churches. There are more and more horror stories of church’s teetering on the verge of collapse or where members are flinging lawsuits over these kinds of divides.

And a lot of Gen Z and Millennials report fleeing the church (and sometimes their faith) over things like this. (Frankly, though, it seems to me that the ones fleeing are sometimes just as bad, except they’re listening exclusively to opposing opinions.)

I get this. I had to apologize to one of my extended family members months ago when I found myself repeating talking points from one of my favorite “Christian worldview” podcasts instead of really listening to her concerns.

So what can we do about this?

Some people have to stop listening all day to their favorite news source. I think anyone who does this knows it’s unhealthy. It’s a very emotionally draining and relationally destructive addiction.

Some people stop keeping up on the news. I won’t do that, and I know a lot of others for whom that’s simply not an option.

Read all sides? Doesn’t help, according to some who point out that it only confirms what you thought about the other side. Say you’re politically progressive and you read a Daily Wire article that conveniently leaves out facts. Or you’re a committed conservative listening to NPR’s version of the same thing. It’ll only make you angrier.

Here’s another approach. I’ve not heard it before. But what if you read each side as if they were lawyers in a court of law. A lawyer will never make the case for the opposition. Each side needs good representation and needs to make it’s case. And you are the judge. You’ve heard the biased cases and convenient facts from each side. Now you decide.

One fly in the ointment of that idea is that these “lawyers” completely ignore the arguments from the other side and the questions (many of them legitimate) that the other side raises..

There are a growing number news sources that are trying to be fair to the other side and clear about their own biases. I often mention “The World and Everything In It” and the “Church Politics” podcasts as two such resources I find helpful. There are others.

At the very least, though, let’s be consciously aware of what’s actually happening when we take in the news, even when (or particularly when) we listen to views we agree with. What have they left out? Have they accurately portrayed those with whom they disagree? What facts have they cherry picked to bolster their argument? Have they addressed thoughtful objections to their position? What are the holes in their arguments?

Fail to ask these questions and we’re sucked into a vortex that’s spiritually damaging, emotionally draining, and relationally destructive.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Proverbs 4:23)

Photo by Uriel Soberanes on Unsplash