Media

​Media
There is no doubt about it, I need to get a life.
I have been thinking about the media.  We have been watching the track of what was a tropical cyclone.  Being from the north I think I had a more ferocious experience of cyclones up there than down here.  One I went through, destroyed the home next door completely.  We spent quite a bit of time under the dining room table.
The media has been very much about Covid-19 and before that the bush fires.  It is terrible to see the destruction wrought.  Thankfully we missed the worst of the fires in this location (I do remember years ago driving through fire everywhere here) and so far so good concerning Covid. 
What strikes me about the media is that in many things they do a great service.  They keep me informed.  I need to know what is happening with the virus.  It is best I avoid certain places.  If I was not told, I would not know.
What I do have trouble with is being told by the media what to think.  Many stories are presented in such a way as to encourage me to suppose a certain thing, and act in a certain way.  Often someone is presented as public enemy number one, and I am encouraged to think the worst.  Yet I only hear one side.  My decision is not an informed one, but an encouraged one (I am not referring to anyone in particular, but making a general observation based on what I see regularly)
The media seems to be excellent at pulling down. So often the problem is presented in unique and novel ways.  Solutions seem to be a different thing.  More than once I have been totally frustrated wanting a question to be asked that never comes.  One thing I would like to be asked more often is “what would you do?”  To me, it is one thing to succinctly state a problem, and another to succinctly state a solution. 
It does not matter what format I listen to, or see, or what station it is, so often it is pushing their own barrow or a generally promoted barrow.  Things are not presented in a natural way for me to make up my mind.  They are presented in a pre-conceived way, telling me what to think.
I came to a conclusion recently.  They reckon we make up to 35,000 decisions a day.  I guess this was one of them.  I have decided that if the media encourages me to think one way, then there is a good chance the other way needs to be looked at.  This is not the case in everything, but definitely in some things.
I am a great fan that just because there is majority consensus, does not mean the majority must be right.  In many things built on proof they are.   For other things, built only on ideas but promoted as the way it is, I am sus.
They reckon, say something loud enough and often enough and eventually you will be believed.  I reckon the media offers a great platform for saying something loud and often.
But I do not want to embrace something just because the media told me.  I want to embrace something because, where I could, I discovered it for myself.