“A Punch is a Punch,” – Bruce Lee

 I recently posted something about Donald Trump setting back the cause of White Supremacy because his mishandling of the Covid-19 outbreak in America showed people that White Males were not necessarily superior to women or people of colour. My post can be found at:

 

What was interesting was that I got an angry response from a friend of mine, who said that it was enough of my “Fake CNN Opinions.” I was intrigued by this comment because this line summed up the crux of his argument, which was “my opinion was fake,” because he or his position said it was. I was a little taken back because this friend of mine is an exceedingly successful corporate high flyer in the technology sphere and given his corporate position, I did expect him to use a more intelligent line of attack.

However, in certain respects, this is part and parcel of living in a world that is highly polarized and thanks to the internet, people have so many sources of information to choose from that instead of looking towards the news agencies as a source of information, people look to the news as a source of confirmation of their own preexisting opinions.

Thanks to Trump, America is the most extreme example of this. To be fair to Donald Trump, he wasn’t the first politician to exploit this difference, he is merely the most successful. If I look at my Facebook feed about stories on the second impeachment trial, I’ve noticed that for every article stating why Trump should have been convicted, there are plenty of other articles from people who think the impeachment trial was a plot by the evil Democrats who chose to target a well-meaning former president.

America, is however, not the only example of this polarization of opinions and people who forget that disagreements are just that. Here in Singapore, one always needs to read a lot to find out the truth of any given event. As my former boss, PN Balji, former editor of the Today newspaper used to say, “According to the mainstream, government can do no wrong and according to the online media, the government can do no right – so the truth is probably somewhere in between.”

Everyone is so busy fighting for their opinion to be regarded as the right one and thanks to the invention of the term “fake news,” it becomes very easy to label anything that you disagree with as “fake.” As my mother pointed out, most us gravitate to the news sources that we agree with. I am guilty of this in many respects. My views on the Middle East for example, are shaped by Haaretz, the Israeli paper which does not follow the Zionist view on things. I also check out Al Jazeera English’s website. For local Singapore news, I’m little bit limited, so I check out the Straits Times Forum, Today and TRemeritus. I avoid reading say, the Jerusalem Post, which an Israeli Diplomat I know, said was what the dumb people read.

In our effort to get confirmation from the press, we forget that there are two sections of the news media. One is the “Opinion” section and then there’s the “News” section. We need to remember that there is a difference between opinions and news.

Let’s start with the obvious. News is supposed to be report on what happened. For if there’ a flash flood, the fact remains that every newspaper reports it because the news is the flash flood. If a politician says something, reporters, regardless of political affiliation are obliged to report what was said. Let’s take the now infamous “covfefe” tweet. This was what the then US President tweeted and was reported by both Fox News and the Guardian.

News happens regardless of our political affiliations. Does the flash flood in some part of the world care if I work for a “conservative” or “liberal” publication? No, it just happens. This is news. News and facts happen regardless of political affiliations of the media. It’s like being punched. Does it matter if the guy who punched you gave you a Chinese Kung-Fu punch or Western Boxing Punch? It’s a punch, you were punched. News reporters are obliged to have some objectivity.

Opinions on the other hand are totally slanted, because well, they are supposed to be and there’s no obligation on the opinion provider to be objective. He or she should argue how a particular opinion was formed and it makes compelling reading if the opinion is based on some form of fact. However, I’ve known successful enough bloggers who write opinions because, well, that’s the way they feel and screw you if you disagree.

The best example of a medium that understands this is, funnily enough Fox News. You have the team that gives you opinions with the likes of Sean Hannity and Laura Ingrahm. I find both pretty objectionable in the opinions they provide (though I do find Laura easy on the eye) but I got to respect that they are opinion providers rather than fact providers (though I do believe trreating Covid like a joke was irresponsible). Both Hannity and Ingrahm took the view that whatever Trump did was a blessing, which was their obligation as opinion providers.

Yet, at the same time section of Fox News that covers the news, does so rather professionally. You have the likes of Chris Wallace who is known as a good objective journalist who has challenged political candidates that his network openly supports. Then there was the reporter who, when asked about the voter fraud allegations during the November Election said “That’s NOT true.”

 

The difference between two sections of the same outlet shows that both sides do two different jobs. People like Wallace are paid to tell it as it is. People like Hannity on the other hand are paid for provoke a reaction.

Sure, we’re not going to like everything we see or read, but the sooner we accept that there is a difference between news reports and opinion reports, the more likely we are to remember that we need to live together in some form of harmony.